Ravenstone Primary School to join Wandle Learning Trust as an academy

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Community Editor
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Ravenstone Primary School to join Wandle Learning Trust as an academy

Postby Community Editor » Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:26 am

Ravenstone Primary School has announced it will become an academy.

Last year concerns were raised by parents at the school of this very thing happening.

The school was criticised in May 2019 for only carrying out a six-week consultation, when parents felt like a longer timeframe was necessary.

But now the school has announced that it will be joining the Wandle Learning Trust.

Rebecca Huggins, chairwoman of the Ravenstone board of governors, said: “Ravenstone is a great school with a warm community of talented staff and wonderful children and families.

"We believe that joining the Wandle Learning Trust will add huge potential to our school and will allow us to work more closely with excellent local schools to achieve our vision of every child that comes to Ravenstone reaching their potential.” 

In a letter to parents announcing the decision, Headteacher Joe Croft and the Ravenstone Governors said the change would mean more long-term improvements in teaching and leadership for the school’s 412 children.

She said: “Joining the Wandle Learning Trust is a fantastic opportunity for Ravenstone.

"By formalising our partnership with other great schools, we will continue to develop brilliant opportunities for the children and staff within our school.

"I am excited about what the future will bring and what we can learn together while leading the schools we care so much about.”

The final decision to join Wandle Learning Trust was made at a meeting on Monday, February 10.

After completing the legal process of joining the Wandle Learning Trust – which is expected to formally happen by July 2020 – Ravenstone will said it will continue to work closely with Wandsworth Council.

 
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Moose
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Re: Ravenstone Primary School to join Wandle Learning Trust as an academy

Postby Moose » Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:15 pm

Sadly this Wandsworth's enthusiasm for off loading all their schools flies in the face of all the evidence that, if a school needs to improve, it will improve very much faster if it remains as a local authority school. It is also the case that schools which are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted are more likely to deteriorate if they become academies. One thing is clear is that, in general, the top salaries in academy groups are higher than they would be if the schools remained with the local authority - which makes one wonder if that might be the motivation for heads to be keen to make their schools into academies.

One of the other very worrying aspects of the fragmentation of education because of academies and "free" schools is that there seems to be a problem of tracking where or, even, if young people are receiving any education at all. One study showed that around 50,000 young people of school age were not in registered education and, of those, 20,000 were not recorded to be receiving any education at all and there was no information of where they were or what they were doing. This should worry every single one of us. When Battersea Park School was taken over by Harris, children were "off rolled" (ie just taken of the school list without any legal process) in some cases it seemed as though this was simply because their exam results would not allow a claim to have improved results!!

Perhaps, the rejection of young people in this way might be contributing to the concern being expressed about the increase in the number of young people being involved in crime.
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