Russell Education Trust/Russell Group Universities

[strictlyfan2013]

Can anyone confirm if the Free School sponsor "Russell Education Trust" is linked to the Russell Group Universities please? Also, what does "State funded independent school" mean? In relation to Free Schools... Thanks!

The point remains how do parents create the new schools they need?

I really couldn't have less time for Gove and all his dogma. I wish he and all politicians would leave education to the professionals.

However how do the parents in a community faced with the prospect of not just no choice of school, but no school places, make sure they get the schools they want for their children?

That officer should be named and shamed and held to account
appalling
but I bet his list of paid for lunch meetings would make interesting reading - a few FOI requests might not go amiss

Oh, and as others have highlighted the LA did facilitate the opening of a new school this September, in the teeth of Judicial Review, sidestepping the Free School process on the basis they had never said (the robustness of their forecasts were not the subject of the legal point) a new school was needed, and so could proceed with the establishment of an exclusive Catholic School that was "desired" .......

I think daphnedill is right to have stuck to the topic. Shooting refers to a few different issues over several years, under the responsibility of different administrations and different education directors. It is a small LA that tends to react at the last minute to changes in government policy and occasionally has a pet project. There's no more a conspiracy to deny school places or otherwise force parents to accept crap choices than there are signs of any criminal activity by RET.

Well this debate long ago strayed from the original OP and I could provide links to Council minutes and webcams that provide evidence of the issues, alongside the aforementioned near 5000 posts on the local site that reflect the local frustration, not to mention the column inches in the local press and lots of evidence here www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/latest-news/ but that has all been more than thoroughly aired and we are where we are.

However the real point is that local situations are rarely as cut and dried as those who wish to criticise national policies would wish them to be. The people proposing Turing House were not making political points, indeed they have worked closely with the Council. They have sought to address a need in the best way they could given the current environment, which is why I find it unacceptable that they come in for criticism that so far no one has, as your rightly point out straggle, provided any evidence to support. They are blind it seems to the possibility that they may actually be doing their best as responsible members of civil society, in a situation where local and national government can't or won't take the initiative.

Anybody who takes public money has to be able to stand the heat!

This thread is about RET and it just so happens that somebody closely involved with the Turing House bid has contributed to the thread and, in the absence of an actual RET director, has chosen to defend the organisation.

Education will always be political. It involves finance, issues of democracy and most importantly what people want out of life.

National government HAS taken the initiative and local government's hands are tied. Will this school truly benefit the pupils who will still have to go to the sink school?

Daphne what sink school?

"Will this school truly benefit the pupils who will still have to go to the sink school?"

It's not a sink school. It's a school that was allowed to consistently underperform for many years. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to turn something like that around. The whole community are willing that to happen.

With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to reflect on what might have been if the LA had participated in the London Challenge, like other London Boroughs that have shown significant improvements in similar schools. Instead they chose to transform it into an academy, sponsored by a Swedish group with an innovative approach to education (very successful, but certainly not mainstream in their home country where they have some very small but popular schools, that people can opt into if they think that model will suit their child).

The sponsor had no record of school improvement, so the initiative was experimental to say the least. Nevertheless, the community has been very supportive on the whole, and you will find very little criticism online because people are willing the experiment to be successful.

The school's most recent open evening (the first in their striking new building) attracted huge crowds, the Head gave an inspiring speech, and many people who would never have previously considered the school were talking very positively about it in the playground over the following weeks.

I expect there will be a sharp rise in their application numbers for 2014, and they could easily be full in September. Unfortunately, their recent Ofsted report wasn't nearly as positive as people hoped, but it was still a dramatic improvement on its previous report, and with a new Head on its way there is still every reason to assume it is on an upwards trajectory.

There is certainly no reason to assume that people who liked what they saw at the open evening will automatically switch preference to a new free school in temporary accommodation, with no track record in preference to their original choice.

The fact remains that there are more than enough children in the area to fill all the existing schools and the new one, provided parents have confidence in the education they will receive. Forcing people into schools they don't like is not the answer, especially in an area where people are extremely mobile and will move house at the drop of a hat rather than risk their child's education on something they're nervous about.

There is no substitute for solid school-improvement initiatives, and the school in question will continue to benefit from intensive support until it is as good as its neighbouring schools. There is no reason why it shouldn't be.

Daphne are you still assuming this is a project aimed at setting up a school that will somehow, be it by means of geographical or faith or gender selection, predominantly serve the middle classes whilst elsewhere in the borough everyone is forced into "sink" schools that no one wants to go to for reasons of, what is effectively social segregation? I have already highlighted that one of the Borough's outstanding comprehensives, one of the schools Turing seeks to model itself on, is right in the middle of one of the borough's areas of greatest social deprivation. It is, like the other outstanding comprehensives, oversubscribed. The success of the initiatives taken to improve London schools have gone a long way to unhook that outstanding / middle class connection. There are now no secondary schools in the borough that could be described as "sink" schools, they are either outstanding or in the process of improvement, having been given the leadership and investment needed. The Council and community expect those will become oversubscribed, it is really just a matter of when, not if. The sheer size of the pupil bulge means we need at least two new secondaries by 2016 at the latest, the question is just how quickly increased quality persuades families to stay in the area / not to go private and further increases demand.

Turing Houses catchment is not determined by any sort of attempt at social segregation. Admissions will be determined by distance from a point that is midway between schools that are (very heavily) oversubscribed or on the verge of being oversubscribed, where the area that will not be served by any school at all will emerge.

Sorry wriggling cross posted.

Wasn't wanting to go into that level of detail but I agree with all that has been written, and it is worth emphasising that in the last admissions round the school was almost oversubscribed at initial allocations. It's numbers are already on the up even before new building / new Head etc.

But it is a complex situation when parents have supported a free school as an alternative to academies run by a Swedish for-profit free school operator! There is a wider problem in terms of weaknesses in the sponsored academy programme as started by Labour and subverted by the Coalition as a means of marketising the whole system. There were many criticisms in the Academies Commission Report of how sponsors have been chosen ('beauty parade'), how consultations are run, the lack of freedoms for schools in an academy chain. Free schools are another layer - an experimental conduit for new operators to emerge. Two have been utter failures so far. RET may be more successful.

I have a question though - why didn't RET put itself forward earlier (under Labour) as an academy sponsor?

"RET may be more successful."
I think they have the credentials to be very successful. The Ofsted report for their Bristol school was certainly the best of all the 2011 secondary free school openers. The 2012 openers will be starting to have their inspections soon, so the Brentwood school is one to watch.

"why didn't RET put themselves forward earlier"
That's obviously a question for them, not me. EL was certainly supporting academies on a consultancy basis through that time, and I expect they would have developed into an academy sponsor over time. RET are an approved academy sponsor now.

The public accounts committee may address the question of how sponsors are chosen, in general, and what they are for. Labour sponsors included Carphone Warehouse (and chains such as E-ACT or the Priory Federation that have been found guilty of financial mismanagement). You'd think a school improvement specialist would be a more logical sponsor for restarting failing schools. Gove is still forcing academy status on schools by handing them to chains that his own department has criticised.

But as W&G has pointed out, the most improved schools in the country were London local authority schools which could use the expertise of a variety of consultants in a targeted way. They didn't need to become academies at all.

Nobody will know for years whether the experiment has been successful.

Another way a free school could have been established would have been for an existing outstanding school setting to set up a trust, which is what has happened with two new schools (one a special school) near me. The advantages with both new schools are that no money has been taken by external organisations and the new schools have retained all control over governance, procurement and staffing. They have been led from the beginning by people who know the area well and the needs of all stakeholders have been integrated.

daphne That would not have happened here because the LA were preoccupied with two strategic priorities, establishing an exclusive Catholic School in the borough by giving the Catholic Church an old school site that became available, and establishing sixth forms in schools in all the borough's secondary schools. They could only justify giving away the school site if they could demonstrate that the site was not needed for an inclusive community school.

Richmond LA has proposed a new secondary free school to open 2017, although I don't know exactly how they are involved in the proposed trust - there is a local employer involved too. And they have a site for that, which RET doesn't yet have. They didn't want a mainstream school to be set up too early, before the academies were full. They have in the meantime suggested an admissions point for RET next to the girls' school, because there are boys in that specific area without a school and girls on the edge of catchment for the successful co-ed schools.

The girls' school is acting as a sponsor for a primary that went into special measures, so the LA would be aware of that route too.

"and establishing sixth forms in schools in all the borough's secondary schools"

This policy has been very popular with parents, but was politically controversial because of the effect it would have on the local sixth-form college (outstanding, but very large, and considered by some to have grown too large, with many families opting for colleges or sixth forms in neighbouring boroughs instead).

The college will continue, but it will be smaller, and the council have plans for use of its spare capacity, including another new secondary free school for 2017 (yes, another one will be needed by then ... the bulge is that big). The school will have some input from another local school which has recently been approved as an academy sponsor, as well as LA and business sponsors, so is along the lines daphnedill suggests. However, it has taken time for that sort of model to be recognised as an option (following the experience in neighbouring Kingston, which is being used as a model).

The Kingston secondary proposal has been on-off for years but may affect a couple of Richmond schools (if successful), so pupil numbers aren't easily predictable.

Why is the borough so keen to establish a Catholic school? Seems odd.

My guess is that it has to provide more sixth form places as a result of the raising of the school leaving age. If I were in charge, I would have set up a high quality vocational college, university technical college or even a 14-19 studio school.

As a matter of interest, how many out-of-borough pupils does Richmond have? I could imagine that it attracts Kingston 11+ failures and pupils from neighbouring authorities with worse-performing schools than Richmond. If that's the case, I can understand Richmond's reluctance to provide places for other authorities. That's what's happening in Bishops Stortford, where there are enough secondary places, but many of them are filled by Essex pupils, which means that mid-year applications to any of the Bishops Stortford schools are unsuccessful. Hertfordshire's response has always been that it's not going to build a new school for another authority's children.

"Why is the borough so keen to establish a Catholic school?"

That's a long story, that's been discussed at length over a period of nearly 3 years on the local Mumsnet site, as mentioned by shooting. There's also a potted history here with lots of links to external material.

"My guess is that it has to provide more sixth form places as a result of the raising of the school leaving age"

That's part of the story, although the college has always had more places than are needed by local families. It caters for other London boroughs too, and many hundreds of students arrive by train every day (sometimes leading to negative stories in the local press which haven't helped the college's profile in the local community).

The sixth forms were wanted by local parents, and the high performing local secondaries have long argued that with sixth forms they would be able to attract and retain staff who wanted to develop their careers into sixth form teaching. The previous council administration were against the change, but the current one had it as an election pledge.

"how many out-of-borough pupils does Richmond have?"

Lots. It's a long thin borough, split into 2 halves by the River Thames, and some of its schools are very near to the borders. (An assumed future reduction in cross-border transfers was one of the aspects of the council forecasts that was disputed).

Personally I think London Boroughs should work together on school place planning. Many of the children who cross over from other boroughs have parents who work here anyway, but can't afford the housing here, and often those families live closer to the schools than the borough residents (one of the schools near the border is on the out-borough side of a very busy road which is a physical and psychological barrier to some).

Many children cross the border in the other direction too, to the extent that I can't remember if we're a net-importer or net-exporter. There are figures online, so if you really want to see them let me know and I'll dig out the reference.

I think it's a net importer but wouldn't be if the percentage attending private schools weren't so high (40% at secondary level). See here page 80.

But a big destination of exports was to Catholic schools in nearby Hounslow, as well as to more selective ones in inner London. That was one rationale for the Catholic school but debatable as Hounslow isn't far away.

straggle For what it is worth this is the background on school place forecasting www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/files/view/risc-briefing-on-richmond-s-secondary-school-plans/RISC_BRIEFING_ON_RICHMOND'S_SECONDARY_SCHOOL_PLANS_-_28_Dec_2012.pdf The Council have yet to update their forecasts in the light of developments in relation to their assumptions. The proposal for The College site is proceeding and was always, even in the Council forecasts, in addition to a new Free School coming from another source, whether it was Turing, or another proposer such as The Maharishi School which made a bid last year with an interesting campaign to attract demand..... However it is a complex proposal involving the College and Haymarket and has many Planning as well as funding hurdles to clear. By 2018 the secondary transfer cohort will be 600 pupils larger than it was this year. The neighbouring borough of Hounslow which accounts for the highest proportion of out of borough students in borough schools will increase by 40 %.

However as I posted earlier all of this has been more than fully aired locally, and is covered on the RISC website, and we are where we are, not least getting into the pre election silly games season. As I said before the main point our experience highlights is the diversity both in the local environment and the Free School proposers. There may be problems of process and implementation, the debacles rightly get a lot of publicity, and the odditys, but we don't hear about the schools that are quietly succeeding because they don't make good newsprint. Regardless of the challenges they face with a non selective intake and meeting OFSTED standards it would certainly solve Richmond's problems if a fully formed independent school were to become a Free School as happened in Bradford, as a result of there not being enough parents with the funds to pay. That ain't going to happen, venture capitalists are actually setting up new independent schools in the borough in anticipation of increasing demand.