Open letter on possible Bolingbroke school Post Reply

[EHMorris]

I still don't understand why there have to be specific feeder schools - can someone enlighten me?

[doleofficedad]

To stop the catchment area shrinking to a handful of roads and so to give access to a wider intake of pupils from different backgrounds - this will give us a genuine and local comp.

LUM is only politically motivated so his views are from a very narrow perpective on this - but I would like to ask him if the head and governors of Falconbrook have been consulated by the GMB and if so what they have said about the GMB using their school as a rallying point for 'class war'? If those conversations did NOT take place, then why has the GMB dragged Falconbrook into this debate? It's pretty low politics. I can only assume the GMB has the permission of Falconbrook. Perhaps you'd like to go on the record about that LUM - give us a few facts that you are so fond of?

[schoolgatesmum]

@localunionmember. I know one of those cars who drop off at Belleville. Do you know where they live? Winstanley Estate (I know this as he's my son's best friend).

Also the figures may be correct for particular roads but the GMB have been very selective in the roads they have chosen (i.e. not included the next road on from Wix which is made up entirely of social housing (Cedars Road).

[localunionmember]

ONS select the roads not GMB or anyone else.

Most of the cars are not from Winstanley.

Last Wednesday I met a trade union member from Hammersmith. He told me that he thought that the Toby young free school there was proposing to exclude nearer poorer kids from White City Estate like Bolinbroke excluding the nearer Winstanley kids.

Can anyone confirm this?

[yummydaddy]

What will come into the public domain ? Don't understand.

Has it ever crossed your mind that living next to a state school doesn't mean your children go to this school. There are dozens of private prep school BTC as there are near Wix (like Eaton House). That's why wix has 31% free school meals although here are some rich people living in that area.

But of course you conveniently ignore it as you Union-guys try to be the master of the propaganda, but when you then scratch on the surface it shows hat it's only spin.

How do you know most of the cars are not from Winstansley ? Have a Union statistic on this as well ?
Many kids from out of area are indeed from Winstansley, exactly 5 kids in my daughter's class. So if you threaten with "this will not be accepted", get you data right and don't just focus on selectively using misleading data (like excluding Cedar road) or using tabloid headlines.

[doleofficedad]

This has just been posted on the Streetbook site in answer to the Toby Young rumour LUM has also started on that local forum. Everyone knows LUM the sad little games you are playing, you are just making yourself look very stupid. Here is the post from Streetbook:

"LUM - when asked to provide details to your statements of fact you are unable to. And you continue to spread malicious gossip, this time about the Toby Young group. Where is any evidence for anything you say? Please provide it or stop spreading nasty little unfounded rumours. As someone who is so keen on the facts, perhaps you would like to tell us how many High View or Wix kids live on the Winstanley? Talk about mudslinging, you are a joke.

Here is the admissions policy for the Toby Young school, which like me you could have very easliy Googled, but rather than take 2 minutes to do that, you prefer to spread innuendo.

"Over-subscription criteria

1. If there are more applicants than places, places will be offered in accordance with the following criteria in order of priority:
2.

Children in public care (children looked after by a local authority under section 22 of the Children Act 1989).
3. Up to 12 children who have applied to be considered under the musical aptitude scheme.
4. After places have been filled under the first two criteria, 50% of any remaining places will be offered to those children who live nearest to the School, measured by the straight-line distance from the School gate to the child’s home. For 2011-2012 admissions, the distance criteria will be measured from the postcode of the Town Hall in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to the child’s home.
5. After places have been filled under the first three criteria, two-thirds of any remaining places will be offered to children living within a three-mile radius of the School. Where the number of applicants in this category exceeds the number of places, offers will be determined by random allocation.
6. After places have been filled under the first four criteria, any remaining places will be offered to children living within a radius of between three and five miles of the School. Where the number of applicants in this category exceeds the number of places, offers will be determined by random allocation.
7. After places have been filled under the first five criteria, any remaining places will be offered to children living beyond five miles from the School. Where the number of applicants in this category exceeds the number of places, offers will be determined by random allocation."

Where in any of that does it say they will exclude poor kids from the White City estate?"

Its not only us who have trouble taking what you say seriously.

[Virgil Tibbs]

For those who are interested, link below to an article on the wider context as to why the unions are so keen on opposing Free Schools. Their motives are fairly obvious.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/a ... ine-.thtml

[LauraBrown]

Apologies, this is long...

It will be interesting to see what happens to the intake at Wix over the coming years. Looking at the 2006 Ofsted report, it says that 50% of kids then were receiving free school meals where the number now is 31%. I think it is probably relevant what the potential catchment area is given that clearly the demographic of the school is changing to be more local - I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's good to see people in that area supporting their local school even if it seems to be mainly the bilingual stream that is so popular. Admissions distances last year were only 300m odd for the bilingual stream and 1500m for the other class!

It's worth noting that once places are allocated to each feeder school on the basis of proportion of applications from each school, it is then decided from within each school based on distance to Bolingbroke. If there are 120 places at Bolingbroke and everyone applied (and all the year 6s were full of pupils), you would expect 18-19 places to go to Wix. In the longer term, assuming the kids not in the bilingual stream are generally coming from the other side of Wix i.e., into Lambeth/North Battersea, that would mean you would expect most of the places to be going to the bilingual class which is coming from the immediately nearby streets (which, as we know, are v v expensive to live in generally!). Always interesting when you dig into these thing...

Back to the debate about distances - I just posted this bit on streetbook too. According to Wandsworth Councl booklet about choosing a wandsworth secondary school that can be found here:

http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/downloads/ ... chool_2011

the council has an official way for measuring distances for secondary admissions and it is based on walking distance. The booklet says:

"For Wandsworth schools, distance from home to school is measured using the shortest walking route along lit roads or paths using the council’s Geographical Information System."

So, it looks like the Council might be able to provide confirmation of the distances. I might email them tonight about it - I won't expect a rapid response!!

[LauraBrown]

And on the question of why they have specific feeder schools... It may be better than pure distance given the location but many people think an element of lottery might have been fairer in that it would have given many more kids a chance of getting in (although a lower probability than those in the feeder schools). Toby Young is having some lottery entrance which I think makes his claims more defensible as that does give a fair chance to a wider range of people (assuming all parents know about it and are able to apply). I wonder what impact a 1.5mile radius lottery would have on the Bolingbroke intake?

[bouncingbertie]

Local Union Member
Can I ask if you are affiliated to the union in a professional capacity?

What I mean is are you employed by the union?

Apologies for asking so directly but I get the feeling that you are so well informed on some of these issues that you might be a professional union member.

Thank you.

BB

[Baronarnaud]

I am a parent of secondary school age children who was dismayed to read that 13 million of tax payers' money has been used to purchase the Bolingbroke hospital site.

What will the refurbishment and running costs be? I also understand that this school will only be able to offer a 4 form entry and will exclude Falconbrook. I feel particularly sorry for Falconbrook who are also losing their local public library – a focal point for the community in one of the most deprived areas in the borough.

My children attend Chestnut Grove School which cannot afford to replace its leaking roof or repair its crumbling buildings. There are serious drainage problems to be addressed – the basement floods every time there is a heavy downpour. Several years down the line the 6th Form are still in their 'temporary' accommodation – a Portacabin! Some of Graveney's buildings are in a similar state of disrepair. I am seething!

I understand that parents are worried about a shortfall of places in the future, but this is not necessarily a forgone conclusion. If the statistics from the last Census are anything to go by, there will be a surplus of places.
A better position for a new school would perhaps have been on the old Spencer Park school site, adjacent to the Victoria Patriotic Building – parents in that area are much further from a secondary school than those in the Northcote Road area.
In any event, I think a much more rigorous analysis of demographics should have been undertaken before spending all that money.
What does £13 million+ work out at per pupil ? 80 something thousand?! I'd like just a little of that to repair my kids school.

And, incidentally, if the council had allowed Chestnut Grove to expand into the adjacent Hearnville Primary School site some years back, rather than selling it off to a private school, this current situation would largely have been avoided altogether.

[doleofficedad]

On the cost of the new school, those of us who support the school have lost count of the number of times we have mentioned the £70 million that is being spent on two existing borough schools. This money will add a fraction of the number of additional pupil places that the Bolingbroke school will add - the cost per pupil at the new school will be a lot less than the cost per pupil at the two schools having the £70 million spent on them. Funny that Laura and her left wing cronies always ignore that point - that the new school is better value for money.

And the ongoing nasty rumour and gossip that the likes of Jane Eade's continues to spread is both shameful and obvious. The GMB are involved because it gives them an excuse to get into a battle with the Tory run council. Jane Eades is involved because she hates anything to do with academy schools. That is why she is part of the small 5 strong executive of the Anti Academies Alliance, a group that has known links to the Socialist Workers Party. For the likes of Jane Eades and the GMB, the debate has nothing to do with whether a local school is actually needed or not, its all to do with nasty extreme left wing politics and class war rubbish.

You can see the reality of what Jane Eades is about here where you will see her name listed as part of the AAA executive. This is a woman who states she has 'no political allegiance'.
http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home/who-we-are

[yummydaddy]

Baron

Victoria Patriotic Building : as far I know flats, workshops and a drama school. So not sure how practical your idea...

my daughter's class at Belleville is in a Portacabine - happens when councils don't take rapidly rising birth rates into account... and Fortbridge site expansion is a mess as we all know.

The council has learned their lessons, and they now analyse demographics much more thoroughly and calculate that there is a need for 1,700 additional secondary school places in the borough by 2017. And that's precisely why Bolingbroke is pushed through by the council.

I know, Unions and others want to create a Tory conspiracy out of this, but the demographics take the wind out of their sails ... that's why their rethorics becomes increasinly desperate and ugly.

[bouncingbertie]

Local Union Member
You are very quiet for once and you've ignored my question.

Can I please ask you again directly, are you employed by a union?

Thank you

BB

[livegreen]

It seems to have been missed that the money raised by converting the Bolingbroke Hospital to local neighbourhood school will benefit us all by improving healthcare - this is from the St Georges Trust and explains where the money raised will be spent.

"The sale is expected to raise millions of pounds which will be invested in improving healthcare for the 1.3 million people that St George’s serves across Wandsworth and southwest London.
The trust has identified key priorities for future investment following the Bolingbroke sale. These include developing a new urgent care centre on the main St George’s Hospital site in Tooting in partnership with NHS Wandsworth, the local primary care trust, and GPs and also expanding the resuscitation department where major trauma patients are admitted."