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!

"It's another thing I hope the public accounts committee looks at."

Well, as I said before, if that evolves, fine. Trusts will evolve along with it. Maybe one day there will be a model for running schools that everyone is happy with, but I suspect that day is a long way off.

There are lots of different models for running schools. But it looks like TH as a school or parent group will not be signing its own funding agreement - unlike Bristol Free School where the original parent group is still recognised in its own right as 'Parent Voice' in the governing body. The Bristol parent group may have had some say on recruiting the head but the TH head was already a RET employee (unless his relationship was as a freelance?) and apart from two parents governors, all the other governors are appointed by (and could be dismissed by) RET.

It's a valid concern that RET's directors (which do include a husband and wife team) will have that degree of control over a school that started as a community campaign. It would be reassuring to see other teachers, more parents (or parent council) and perhaps an LA representative on the governing body as for the other sponsored academies in the area.

Straggle, as I said before, the complex sub-trust model (used by BFS and BK) is evolving into a MAT model, in-line with the DfE framework. The MAT model is simpler, so is presumably preferred by those who may need to audit academy trusts. Those of us who have been working to set up the school locally are also very happy with the new model, and have been fully consulted on the change.

The Governing body hasn't yet been appointed, and you don't yet have visibility of the schemes of delegation, so perhaps you can reserve judgement for now.

As I said in my last post, maybe one day there will be a model for running schools that everyone is happy with, but I suspect that day is a long way off.

Gosh, it's taken me the whole day to get up to speed and read through all the posts on this thread! Really interesting.
However, I do think that the BK head is a bit obsessed with RG unis...please see his twitter feed, with photos of pages of a book on how to get into Oxbridge and the school newsletter on their website stating how being part of a choir can help students get into a RG uni - funny that the ex-choir member example given doesn't seem to have been to uni at all...
I think these actions speak volumes. But that is my personal opinion. I won't be touching BK with a barge pole. Too risky, too out of touch with reality, and too naive.

WrigglingandGiggling
I'm rather worried that you seem to think that its OK that the trust model keeps "evolving"
Once a school has been set up and its trust deed and funding agreement signed, it will not evolve any further from that point.
So if its wrong, it will stay wrong.
The contracts will be written with very little wriggle room and long notice periods.

"I'm rather worried that you seem to think that its OK that the trust model keeps "evolving""

I didn't particularly say whether I thought it was ok or not, but I am being pragmatic. It's a fact of life. People who want to help set up new schools have to work within the DfE's framework. The alternative is no school.

OP, I find those Becket Keys newsletters a bit offputting too.

the school newsletter on their website stating how being part of a choir can help students get into a RG uni

I assume you mean this extract from the newsletter:

"Russell Group Universities look for a commitment to music when deciding between some of the top students for their universities. Often they will specifically seek out students who are experienced choristers. With this in mind, we are constantly encouraging our students to look at joining a church choir."

I agree with you – it’s a load of rubbish and just shows how little the management at Becket Keys know about getting into Oxbridge or any other Russell Group Uni. I have twice attended talks given by Cambridge admissions tutors to potential applicants. The speakers went to great pains to stress that they take very little notice of extra-curricular activities when considering applications.

The Twitter feed did make me giggle a bit though. There was a tweet about the Year 7 disco...followed by some very devout-looking pupils in a choir! Hmmm...they do live it up at their discos, don’t they?

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/anger-at-16321m-spent-on-schools-consultants-2275172.html

...and it came to pass!

So what you are suggesting is that there was not sufficient local strength of feeling to get a school up and running without the involvement of a partner?

So what you are suggesting is that there was not sufficient local strength of feeling to get a school up and running without the involvement of a partner?

There's no doubt about the strength of feeling, as was discussed at length earlier in the thread. That was the catalyst for the school, and will be one of the success factors, but it takes more than that. It also takes expertise and experience, as well as local enthusiasm.

The strength of feeling was more anti-Catholic school than pro-free school (against the LA spending £10 million to buy a site for a Catholic school).

RET has a lot of useful experience to offer. But it is problematic being associated with the wider RET chain when most of their schools are faith schools, which will continue to be controversial where other free schools become more established. It doesn't help when the Becket Keys headteacher defines his school as 'collaborating' with other RET schools but otherwise being in competition with the rest ( p.3). I can understand why that school has generated a lot of criticism.

straggle RISC was an anti inclusive school movement and a broad coalition of people, some of whom, like me had no problem with a Catholic School being established. It's momentum came primarily from parental dissatisfaction that our Council was gifting the best site for a new school that would exclude the majority of the children in our community at a time when we were facing a huge increase in pupil numbers. In an environment where many parents were already unhappy with existing LA provision it was the final straw. Indeed arguably a lot of the momentum behind the campaign for a Catholic School came from parental dissatisfaction with existing state provision. As was highlighted at the time there were well trodden paths from the Catholic Schools into Waldegrave, where the admissions process didn't effectively exclude applicants from Catholic Schools via the Link school system, and private schools like LEH (even though there is a private Catholic School within a couple of miles). I think the ferocity vibrancy of the debate reflected the strong feelings about The LAs record of provision on all sides.

And it reflected the strong commitment that exists in the borough to our children's education. I agree with wrigglingthat it is sad that all this mud is being slung around without anyone conceding that many people really are working very hard to improve our schools and ensure that all children have a chance of the best possible education. That is what makes the success of the London challenge so heartening, it showed it could be done.

I had to have a small smirk at the debate on procurement. In my career I have seen the pendulum swing between centralisation and devolvement of procurement in business organisations so many times, like so many management practises it all goes in cycles. I well remember my mother, an experienced Deputy Head, tearing her hair out in 1989 when procurement was taken out of LA hands and she was suddenly landed with the challenge of getting enough coal to keep the kids warm within budget. Crazy.....

Members of British Humanist Association started the anti-Catholic school campaign. A lot of people signed petitions for and against - faith schools are divisive. A few people wrote letters. If there was general 'parental dissatisfaction with existing state provision', few expressed it during the sponsored academies consultation when only 20 people replied.

Straggle, you're trying to reignite an old debate.

straggle Some of the people who started RISC are Humanists, several are not. Like the Accord Coalition, it's founders and supporters include people of faith, who subscribe to various belief systems / ideologies and none, and that was reflected in the various spokespeople who spoke up at the Scrutiny and Cabinet meetings. It never had an anti faith agenda, it was always about inclusivity and Vince Cable reflected the strength of parental anxiety about school places in calling on the school to at least concede 50 / 50 inclusive admissions.

I don't think you can quote disinterest in a consultation about the futures of three schools few felt any identification with as lack of interest in education. If you need evidence of the demand for a new inclusive comprehensive school like Orleans Park, Teddington or Waldegrave (albeit that is gender selective) then look at the fact that each of them had around 1000 parents making them first preference in the last round and that was from a year when there was actually a slight dip in the cohort. Next year there will be 140+ more pupils chasing places and the Open Days have been overrun with anxious parents . When Turing invited expressions of interest in what they had to offer they received an avalanche, I can't remember exactly the numbers but within days they had more than enough evidence of demand.

The issue is perhaps why the sponsored Academies have not inspired that level of interest, I really don't understand in the case of Richmond Park Academy, it seems to have inspiring leadership and lots of positive buzz from existing parents and it is hard to see what more they could do, I suspect that Shene School was so bad for so long that it is engrained in the culture of the area that it just isn't an option, so from the time your children are in nursery you are working on plans to go private, move, or develop elaborate plans to find other options....... Twickenham and Hampton Academies, for all their iffy OFSTEDs are all but full, and Twickenham Academy would have been full at first allocations if some of the parents in it's catchment who didn't get any of their preferences had not been offered the very undersubscribed new St Richard Reynolds, though it was not the closest school . I am not by the way seeking to make capital out of that, it is a new school and new schools take time to establish.

Quite right wriggling

I wasn't the one who brought up the Catholic school, 'sink schools' or primary school places. But the judicial review was a separate issue that attracted national interest because it was testing the law. The free school was suggested by a small group of parents but was also popular among those worried about related to a separate change in feeder school policy that had nothing to do with the Catholic school.

The free school bid has some good elements to it, and until the LA came out with its own free school plan, seemed to be the only new non-faith school on the table. But it has evolved from being a parent-led school to a sponsored academy that is part of a chain and W&G linked to the governance structure that implies fewer elected parent governors than other local schools. And the admissions point has changed. It's now next to the girls' school, which suggests it should be a boys' school - but it isn't, and some parents are finding that confusing.

Expressions of interest are not the same as applications, for which we don't yet know numbers. While the lack of site would obviously put people off, there's no risk in applying in addition to the London CAF and no need to rank a preference. A lot of parents are worried that it will affect waiting lists if people hold on to two offers.

I've mentioned the rationale for the admissions point several times in previous posts, in the context that it was all about meeting need. It has not changed. It is as agreed with the LA at the centre point of the existing coed schools where a black hole of provision will materialise. It is clearly explained here www.turinghouseschool.org.uk/admissionspoint.php I am absolutely sure that parents in that area are not in the least confused, none that I know of certainly, since they were the ones most worried about school places and grateful for the proposed school, and the agreed admissions point. The parents of boys are most concerned but Waldegraves catchment does not stretch very far up Hampton Road these days, and will get smaller.

The Council's proposal for a new school is to meet the need in addition to Turing. It will not be big enough to meet the need alone, even on the Council's forecasts.

Straggle, if parents are confused or worried about the things you mention they can email the school. They will get a rapid and helpful response.

Straggle, the 2014 policy hasn't changed. It was always 100% around the admission point.

The website states that the policy for 2015 and beyond will take the school site (which hasn't yet been announced) into account. There will be a consultation on that at the relevant time.

As this conversation has now strayed from the rebuttal of public allegations, to the interpretation of school policies, I suggest you email further questions and concerns to the school.

straggle very odd post. Where do you get this from? I think this is now getting somewhat ridiculous. Perhaps email Matthew Paul, the Council's Education Officer responsible as well as Turing to get all this straight in your mind, if you actually want to get it straight in your mind. I have already shared with you the Council's school place forecasts, together with an assessment of the risk they underestimated need, no one thinks they overestimated it. As to the stuff on the admissions point I have never heard that before from anyone, it sounds just plain odd.