by hilary » Mon Dec 28, 2009 4:51 pm
Historical Perspective
i am a grandmother living in the area. Twenty-five years ago there was a concerted campaign from parents living on the Lambeth-Wandsworth borders to create a new school for the area around Wandsworth Common, Kings Avenue and Clapham South, on the (then failing) Henry Thornton Boys site. Feeder schools would have been Honeywell, Bellville, Wix', Clapham Manor, Heathbrook, Glenbrooke, Kings Acre MacCauley and Alderbrook. Nine feeder schools minimum, but we were told there was not enough demand. we were told we would take demand away from (the then grossly under-achieving) Chestnut Grove. Amongst those campaigning that i knew personally were , were architects, artists, builders, business people, cooks, dinner ladies, doctors, journalists judges, lollipop ladies, mathematicians, nurses, prison visitors, secretaries. teachers, unemployed, writers... in fact most of the parents that attended my daughters school in sW2. However, this too was dubbed a middle class movement, and rejected. Various local schools were shut down in a mass reorganisation and choices became restricted.
Out of the parents who campaigned, those who could afford it sent their children to fee-paying schools, although they would have preferred not to, some like myself, tried Chestnut Grove and found it wanting and removed our children to the Borough of Richmond, others went to Pimlico or were just disillusioned for the next five years.
It is when you have a comittment from parents together with 'neighbourhood', that a school will succeed and those people who have decried the 'middle classes' in Time and Leisure, and indeed any readers of Time and Leisure should look with some amusement at the irony of the 'Wandle with Chelsea", as it is carrying 15 advertisements for those who can afford to pay.
It is unfair that Tooting has the flagship school. unfair that is on those who live in Tooting, not unfair on those who live in SW11 or SW12. It is unfair that my daughters children, when she has lived in Tooting for over 10 years and within 400m of Graveney, that she will not be able to send her children there unless they pass the entrance exam. Last year her neighbours child was rejected, 2 marks below par. It is unfair too, because there are no good schools in other parts of the borough for residents of the other parts of the borough. Those that could have been and were good, have deteriorated over the last 15 years or so. Why, when this is one of the richest boroughs in London? The answer lies somewhere in the fifteen advertisements for fee-paying schools, the opting out of the middle classes of the State system, and now the promotion of the also selective, but state funded religious schools.
Time and Leisure should get behind parents who want good state education for their children, They are making money from the advertisers and this should 'absolutely not' stop them from some sensible reporting on how this can be achieved in the area they serve.
Historical Perspective
i am a grandmother living in the area. Twenty-five years ago there was a concerted campaign from parents living on the Lambeth-Wandsworth borders to create a new school for the area around Wandsworth Common, Kings Avenue and Clapham South, on the (then failing) Henry Thornton Boys site. Feeder schools would have been Honeywell, Bellville, Wix', Clapham Manor, Heathbrook, Glenbrooke, Kings Acre MacCauley and Alderbrook. Nine feeder schools minimum, but we were told there was not enough demand. we were told we would take demand away from (the then grossly under-achieving) Chestnut Grove. Amongst those campaigning that i knew personally were , were architects, artists, builders, business people, cooks, dinner ladies, doctors, journalists judges, lollipop ladies, mathematicians, nurses, prison visitors, secretaries. teachers, unemployed, writers... in fact most of the parents that attended my daughters school in sW2. However, this too was dubbed a middle class movement, and rejected. Various local schools were shut down in a mass reorganisation and choices became restricted.
Out of the parents who campaigned, those who could afford it sent their children to fee-paying schools, although they would have preferred not to, some like myself, tried Chestnut Grove and found it wanting and removed our children to the Borough of Richmond, others went to Pimlico or were just disillusioned for the next five years.
It is when you have a comittment from parents together with 'neighbourhood', that a school will succeed and those people who have decried the 'middle classes' in Time and Leisure, and indeed any readers of Time and Leisure should look with some amusement at the irony of the 'Wandle with Chelsea", as it is carrying 15 advertisements for those who can afford to pay.
It is unfair that Tooting has the flagship school. unfair that is on those who live in Tooting, not unfair on those who live in SW11 or SW12. It is unfair that my daughters children, when she has lived in Tooting for over 10 years and within 400m of Graveney, that she will not be able to send her children there unless they pass the entrance exam. Last year her neighbours child was rejected, 2 marks below par. It is unfair too, because there are no good schools in other parts of the borough for residents of the other parts of the borough. Those that could have been and were good, have deteriorated over the last 15 years or so. Why, when this is one of the richest boroughs in London? The answer lies somewhere in the fifteen advertisements for fee-paying schools, the opting out of the middle classes of the State system, and now the promotion of the also selective, but state funded religious schools.
Time and Leisure should get behind parents who want good state education for their children, They are making money from the advertisers and this should 'absolutely not' stop them from some sensible reporting on how this can be achieved in the area they serve.