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!

straggle we could, and have debated this for hours, but the crux of the Catholic case, as well as travelling times (though it is hard to imagine any member of the Catholic community deciding not to send their boys on the long journey to Oratory given the opportunity) was always that increased demand in the Catholic Schools in West London, particularly arising from demand from the Polish community in Ealing, would lead to pressure on places in schools that traditionally served Richmond's Catholic community. However the Dioceses Head of Education maintained there would be enough places in those schools for at least the next five years. Hence the case being that there was a desire for a Catholic School, not a need.

Mumble grumble mumble...if I had my way, I'd abolish all faith schools. They seriously complicate admissions and I bet everybody knows of at least one person whose devotion got forgotten once his/her dc secured a place at a "good" faith school. I've taught plenty of Catholic Poles in secular schools and they were perfectly happy.

As for school sixth forms...the borough is nuts! There are only three sixth forms which could sustain a full range of post 16 courses. If they do indeed attract the better teachers, the difference between the higher and lower achieving schools will become even greater. None of them will be able to run courses such as Latin or German, which attract very small numbers. You will probably also find that pupils are pushed on to A level courses which aren't appropriate, just to push up the numbers.

My local comp's PAN is 290 and it has a sixth form of nearly 600. The size of the sixth form means that it has a huge range of courses and is one of the most successful non-selective sixth forms in the country. However, it loses pupils to local further ed colleges, so has to attract pupils from surrounding schools, whose sixth forms are now struggling. Richmond doesn't have any schools anywhere near the size of my local comp and only has one school which achieves similar (in 2012 the same) GCSE results.

What a mess!!:-(

(Anyway, I've strayed. Sorry!)

Which school in Bradford do you mean?

The secondary school I attended as a teenager was direct grant, then fully independent, then became a state-funded academy.

The word was that it needed the money for capital refurbishment and the move wasn't popular with many of the parents of existing pupils. Since "academisation" the results have gone down. Only time will tell whether it will be distinguishable from any of the other secondary schools in the area.

Nationally, there are a number of former direct grant and grammar schools, which became comprehensives and are still trading on their history, but are actually struggling. Some of the better comps are former secondary moderns. In the end the results depend to a great extent on the intake.

Daphne www.bggs.com Also a former Direct Grant.

www.bggs.com

Thank you for the link.

I just wanted to clarify that you didn't mean another free school in Bradford:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24677371

I mistook it for this one:

www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/137487 (You'll have to click on the link to the report, because I can't link directly.)

Interestingly, the Section 8 report states that it was the LA and partnership with other schools which was responsible for the subsequent improvement.

daphnedill I think you have analysed the sixth form problem correctly - amazing how popular they are though. The Catholic school was also a manifesto commitment but one that generated as much opposition as support (the inclusive ('anti-Catholic') school campaign inspired the free school proposal supported by RET, but still didn't secure the site).

Shooting the private schools are too successful in the LA to want/need state funding and want to preserve their selective status. But you are right that if RET hadn't supported the proposal, and in the absence of a plan by the council (which was announced later), another altogether more aggressively profit-driven operator may have put in a bid. And that seems to be happening at primary level.

I honestly think that parents should look long and hard at sixth form provision in Cambridge (for example). Hills Road produces the kind of academic results to satisfy any aspiring parent (and pupil), whilst Long Road is less academic, but also produces good results. The local regional college runs the kind of vocational courses one would expect, whilst a new university technical college looks as though it will plug a need for high-quality science and hi-tech 14-19 education. I don't think that kind of range of provision could be provided by individual school sixth forms.

I think Batley was struggling in all senses for quite a while whilst BGGS had actually maintained it's academic reputation and numbers until fairly recently. I am sure it could have consolidated with BGS in a similar way to GSAL but it has something of a campaigning blue stocking tradition and the members of the Governing Body, mainly Old Girls, felt it was more in keeping with the founding ethos for it to continue to serve the girls of Bradford, in fact more in keeping with the founding tradition than independent status. Anyway I am sure that dealing with mixed ability and the requirements of OFSTED will present new challenges, I would have thought the school in a better position than Batley to meet them but surely it would be common sense to seek the benefit of any expertise within the LA / other state schools. And however you look at it, however long it takes an existing school and it's staff to adapt to their new educational environment a school building with state of the art sports, sixth form, IT facilities would be welcome in any area with rising school numbers.

Anyway as I say it demonstrates the diversity in Free Schools and that it is simplistic to assume it is all a feeding frenzy by aggressively profit driven operators.

What our situation demonstrates here is that LAs can be every bit as politically motivated and guided by vested interests, in contrast to the Turing proposers who have been careful to stay independent from the Catholic School debate and focus on meeting the community need that appeared to be being neglected in favour of a legacy project.

And it wasn't by the way the only issue on which the community felt their interests were being neglected by the Council leadership, there was another Judicial Review at the time. I could link you to a website that would provide similar evidence of community activism but on a Planning Issue. One might be an accident but two a tad careless

Another judicial review here but I hope the council wins that one!

Ah yes. The school that she was offered down the road from the address the Councillor pays Council Tax on is the difficult to access one they offer parents who don't get any of their preferences from a large radius. It is a good school though, but with a diverse catchment. The one that she is appealing against has a tiny catchment of £m houses and 17 years ago siblings were being brought in by drivers in people carriers from Chiswick and even Chelsea. Funny that. Obviously we don't know the full facts of the case but I obviously hope they are not going to leave the door open again to people renting etc. and then moving back to their main address. There is a certain irony though given she was responsible for the policy that leaves many parents who live much further away with no choice but the former school.

So now who's suggesting conspiracies?!

Anyway, I'm going to leave this debate now, because it's strayed, but it's been interesting and enlightening.

I still feel that RET would benefit from greater transparency and fewer suggestions of cronyism, so you can pass that on next time you see them, if you like. I realise that EL is a business and will go where the money is.

I hope it works out well for everybody concerned.

Are you happy that RET is deciding who supplies IT support for seven years?

www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2171078/joskos-wins-schools-ict-deal

For all I know this company is brilliant, but it's like going back to the old days when local authorities decided on its schools' suppliers (with all the "funny" handshakes).

"Are you happy that RET is deciding who supplies IT support for seven years?"

Yes, and they have been selected through a thorough procurement process.

In the MAT model there are clear schemes of delegation between the MAT (which signs the funding agreement with the DfE, and so has overall responsibility for governance of the schools) and the local Governing bodies. Those schemes of delegation aren't currently online for you to look at.

"it's like going back to the old days when local authorities decided on its schools' suppliers (with all the "funny" handshakes)."

All Academy Trusts (including converter academies) are regulated by the DfE, who are in turn answerable to the Audit Commission for the proper use of public money.

I will leave it to others to give opinions on whether it is easier for the Audit Commission to keep an eye on thousands of individual academy trusts in comparison to a smaller number of multi-academy trusts. However, I have heard it speculated that many of the converter academies will be encouraged to consolidate into MATs in the near future, to make them easier to audit.

This company was selected before the Twickenham school was given approval, so the head will be tied into a contract he might not want even before he starts. Your point about MATs is a smokescreen. Many secondary schools don't even outsource this kind of service, because they manage it inhouse more efficiently by employing a network manager. The point I'm making is that it seems the new schools will have very little autonomy. They won't even have control over choosing the trustees or governors they want. I'm not doubting the legitimacy of this IT company, so the point about being approved/audited by the DfE is another smokescreen. The original rhetoric about free schools included references to greater autonomy for local groups, whereas the opposite seems to be the case. The heads will be DfE (and, in this case, RET) puppets.

Yes, and they have been selected through a thorough procurement process.

As you claim to be one of the local people involved in setting up the school, how come you have first hand knowledge of the procurement process involved in this case?

"As you claim to be one of the local people involved in setting up the school, how come you have first hand knowledge of the procurement process involved in this case?"

Because we work in partnership with RET and discuss things like this all the time.

The original sub-trust model was one way of formalising that partnership. The MAT model, with its schemes of delegation is another way of formalising it.

As I said before, academy trusts are trying to operate within a framework that has been set out by the DfE. The framework is constantly evolving, and trusts are evolving in line with it.

If you think the framework is a 'smokescreen' you should feed that back to the DfE.

"This company was selected before the Twickenham school was given approval, so the head will be tied into a contract he might not want even before he starts."

If there are issues with it then the Heads of the schools will feed that back to the RET board and the problems will be dealt with appropriately.

It is arguably more efficient than each school running its own separate IT procurement process or having its own network manager.

"it seems the new schools will have very little autonomy"

It is not currently possible for you to see how much autonomy they have because the schemes of delegation aren't online. They may be online in the future, but don't expect it to happen over the Christmas holidays.

"They won't even have control over choosing the trustees or governors they want"

The RET trustees are responsible for Governance of all of their schools (analagous to the LA) and are accountable to the DfE. They appoint the local governing body. They also formally delegate a range of their governance responsibilities to the local governing bodies and Headteachers. Those schemes of delegation are documented, but not online.

"The original rhetoric about free schools included references to greater autonomy for local groups, whereas the opposite seems to be the case."

There is close partnership working between RET and its local groups. We wouldn't have got this far if that wasn't the case.

We chose RET because we didn't want to use the jigsaw approach of procuring services individually (as groups such as West London Free School have done), and because we also didn't want a "one size fits all" Academy provider.

RET is one of the few trusts that provide a core service that is common to all of its schools, while giving the individual local groups the freedom to define the vision and values. That is why they have a wide range of schools (CE, non-denominational, Greek Orthodox).

"The heads will be DfE (and, in this case, RET) puppets."

No headteacher takes kindly to being called a puppet. If they felt they were being treated like that then they would move on to another school. If they choose to work at an RET school it is because they like that model. (In the same way as a Harris school head would only take on the role if they liked the Harris model, and similarly with a West London Free School Head).

'I have heard it speculated that many of the converter academies will be encouraged to consolidate into MATs in the near future'

I hope not. Umbrella trusts or federations perhaps (or whatever new way Labour proposes for creating local oversight boards) but not multi-academy trusts. Converter or standalone academies have their own governing bodies that include a higher proportion of elected parent and teacher governors and even LA representation than academies run by chains.

And governance of a RET school by its own trustees is not analagous to the LA. LAs have not run schools directly since 1989 when local management of schools was brought in. They already had a lot of autonomy and the Academies Commission specifically pointed to the reduced autonomy of schools within chains compared to LA maintained schools. It's pointed out repeatedly on the LSN blog (e.g. here and here).

Of course, sponsors can have an important role in setting up a school or (now that LAs have been weakened by this government's policies) improving it in a time of crisis - the two free school failures so far were standalone. So it's logical that free schools may work with a sponsor. But I'd prefer it if sponsors could be sacked more easily and new legislation brought in to override funding agreements - schools within chains don't actually have a separate legal status. It's another thing I hope the public accounts committee looks at.