School Admissions Consultation - Belleville Post Reply

[ready2pop]

I'm nowhere near being in the catchment area for any of the schools we are talking about but the idea of living next door to a school and not being able to send your children there does seem ludicrous.

Something similar to the Belleville expansion happened in Lambeth last year with Henry Cavendish in Balham. Lambeth decided to expand the school on to an empty site in Streatham but with both sites being run as one school. When looking at applications the school automatically allocates children to the nearest site then works from the distance to that site. There would have been absolute uproar in my neck of the woods otherwise.

I suspect that part of the problem is that the attraction of Belleville or Honeywell is not just that they are good schools but also that they are 'middle class' schools. They both have small catchment areas made up of family houses costing just shy of £1m so parents have felt confident that their children would be surrounded by children with similar backgrounds. Lots of people I know have paid a premium for houses in the area purely for this reason and will happily admit that if their children don't get into Belleville or Honeywell they will educate them privately instead. The council's plans worry people because they think the demographic might change.

[custardy]

But currently Belleville seems to be a very diverse and multi-cultural school for sure (and is described as such in its Ofsted). It's easy to think that because the houses around the school are high-5 to low-6 figures that means the school population is definitively middle class. When in fact children come from much further away, from less affluent areas, and their siblings continue to allow a diverse population within the school. And although many people who live close can quite ably and happily go private, not all can, and Belleville is their local school too.

However, tightening up the catchment will probably start to see a less diverse population at Belleville. Though I'm not sure if expanding the catchment to Northside would make any difference on this front, surely this move would still continue to reinforce the middle class label rather than pursue diversity?

What is certain is that the wealthy (middle class?), rent-a-one-bed-flat-but-not-move-in brigade aren't going to be affected by catchment changes - they can just rent another place within priority catchment area 1 when the next sibling is due to start. That's what the council doesn't seem to want to acknowledge or control very publicly - they say they have procedures in place, but has anyone been uncovered and made to take their child out of a school place gained fraudulently?

[rcourtney]

The Forthbridge Site is going to be used from September 2011. This is done and dusted and not up for debate.

The council has proposed a second priority area from admission based on distance from the Forthbridge Site. I think the point that some have missed is that residents in the first zone take priority over residents in the second zone (for get the sibling issue for the time being). This means that it you live near the main Belleville site, you are more likely to get a place at 'Belleville' than before. Only once everyone that lives in the first zone have been given a place will children in the second zone be considered.

This is not something that I agree with, but that's what people are being asked to consider. I reiterate that local schools should be for local people.

I don't understand why anyone who lives near the main site (and that rejected the expansion of the main site) could possibly reject the plan to designate a first 'preference' zone and a second 'ordinary zone' for admission to their beloved school.

Ideally the Forthbridge site would be a separate school that would cater for local children, if this is not possible then local Forthbridge residents will have to accept the unfair proposals that have been given and vote to be included in the 'ordinary zone' and not the 'pref zone' in the hope that they wont be left staring over the school gates or fighting for 'scraps' once people who live near the main site have taken the places they want.

[cynic]

In my view there's is no realistic way that any child living close to the Forthbridge site in the SECOND geographical priority area will EVER gain a place under the council's current proposals!

It's all in the details of the proposals:
(i) Belleville is already oversubscribed and pretty much all the non-sibling places in 2010 were offered to children who already live in the area being suggested as first priority area!

(ii) The transitional arrangment which will allow all siblings into Belleville until 2017, will also act as a 6 year buffer during which the first priority area will become well known & understood as the area which may gain you priority access.

(iii) You can see how this works if you look at Beatrix Potter School, the only other Borough school with two ranked priority areas then in 2007, 2008 AND 2009 NO NON-SIBLING CHILDREN FROM THE SECOND GPA GAINED A PLACE at this school.
In 2008 siblings from both areas took all the places but in 2007 & 2009 children in the first priority area DID get in under the distance criteria
(This school just underwent an expansion from 30 to 60 places in 2010 so that's why it wasn't the case this year)

(iv) Finally, almost absurdly, the distance criteria for the second priority area is still based on distance from the Belleville main site!

[cynic]

rcourtney

You wrote "The council has proposed a second priority area from admission based on distance from the Forthbridge Site"
Just to be very clear this is not the suggestion at all!
In fact places in the second priority area will also be offered on the basis of distance from home to Belleville School MAIN site.

I missed this myself the first time I read the proposals, I guess because like you I assumed distance from Forthbridge would be the only sensible suggestion in the second priority area, but no

It's really quite preposterous, isnt it!

[cynic]

ready2pop

thank you for the example of the recent expansion of Henry Cavendish Primary School in Balham.

I did some research on Local authorities with split-site schools
and found that if it's a genuine two site school i.e. pupils pretty much stay on one site and the distance between the sites is bigger than admission distance then most LAs sensibly will find a method to include distance from either site as they see this as a fairer way to do things.

It just emphasises how unprecedented the Wandsworth admission proposals regarding the Forthbridge site are, when the neighbouring LA employs a completely different but clearly fairer method at a school less than 2miles away from Belleville!

[monaco]

Cynic

I think I agree with you that the current proposal "removes any choice whatsoever that parents who live near Forthbridge might have had to send their children there". To go back to my previous post, it also removes any choice for parents who live south of Broomwood road (sobroo).

Just to clarify: my previous post was not meant to mislead people in any ways and I apologize if it did, but to point out the situation for the "sobroo" community, which nobody really talks much about in this thread.
If you live there, under the current proposal, you have no chance of getting into either Belleville, Honeywell, Alderbrook or Wix (english stream).

For information, our house is 1801 m from Wix (as per the council answer's to me) so beyond the 1689m distance you quoted for Wix english stream.

So yes, it means that the sobroo community is left with only High View and I suppose Shaftsbury Park. Both are struggling schools and are really not an easy commute (as Custardy said).

Under this proposal, Sobroo people loose on both counts: access to a "local" school and choice of the right school for their child. Forthbride people do too.

What Cynic just pointed out about Forthbridge people being judged by distance to the main Belleville site makes the whole proposal completely ridiculous !

So the new proposal is unfair for the Forthbridge people, it's unfair for the Sobroo people. It is fair for people living in the priority zone but they were already pretty sure of getting into either Honeywell or Belleville.

To me the real problem is the sibling policy and those "false resident" people. I would challenge the council to find a solution to THAT problem.

Keep the distance rule as is but find a way to catch or remove those people who find a way to get one child in and then move out of the borough or stop "renting".

[besin]

Dear all,

Thank you for sharing our thoughts. Here is my point of view on the consultation. It is not a consultation, this is a joke and waste of public money.

Last June the council promised to address concerns resulted in 451 objections. And? Nothing was done. Forthbridge Rd local residents still have not ANY chance for their children to attend the school on their doorstep unless their rent close to Belleville for 6 months...

In the mean time the Wandsworth Council Education Committee Head Cllr Peter Dawson house is included into the proposed 1st Priority area for Belleville to prop up its value (or may be he will offer it for short term paper rent? ). And do you think Cllr Dawson is the only Cllr living in this proposed 1st priority area?

Our councillors think about their own interests first, not about local residents and their children. That's the main obsctacle for fair and rational solutions like Lambeth council made for their Henry Cavendish Primary School based on two sites too.

The current consultation is a waste of public money because it does not offer any choice for Forthbridge residents. If they vote Yes or No the result will be the same. Realistically their children will NOT have any chance to attend the closest school. What is the point of doing such consultation exercise?

Such approach to grab a school from one area to give it to another will naturally create a confrontation between "unprivileged" Forthbridge local residents and "privileged" Belleville people. I suppose that no one will expect a warm welcome.

[custardy]

besin, I think your post is bordering on libellous re your comments about a specific councillor. you may wish to edit the post accordingly.

Whatever the outcome of the consultation, I do hope that people will be mature enough not to subject young children starting at their first school to a "confrontation" or to a less than "warm welcome".

[Flogri]

To juliantenniscoach and those who think that the Council proposed the priority rule to stop the recent trend of families "paper renting" in the catchment area for short-term.

1- If the Council wanted to stop the temporary rental issue they would have reviewed the sibling question as a whole

2- The main argument for the Council to expand Belleville was the increasing birth rate around Belleville. But why does the birth rate increase more around Belleville main site than around Forthbridge road or other sites? 2.1 of course if you have a guaranteed place for your child in a good public school you can afford to have more children 2.2 the increasing number of applications is not only linked to the increase of birth rate; it is also and specillay linked to the increase of temporary tenants to get a place in a good public school.

Given that the level and reputation of the school remains the same and the places to Forthbridge site are given to local residents, we can expect the same "increase of birth rate" around Forthbridge road in the next few years.

Belleville is a good school. I find it legitimate that both parents living close to Belleville site and Forthbridge site want access to it for their children. The 30 additional places in Forthbridge road could be shared: 15 for those living close to Belleville site and 15 for those living close to Forthbridge site. In my opinion, this would be one of the fairest proposal.

[besin]

Dear Custardy, sorry if I offended anyone and sorry to be direct - the issue concerns me a lot.

Relating to Cllr P.Dawson, the Education Committee head, his address is available on Wandsworth Council website, so you can check and see that he is in the Priority zone 1. Just wanted to make it clear.

And finally about the confrontation. The council should care about the social cohesion. The proposals in the consultation do not help to save it.

[custardy]

besin, I think you are being disingenuous re motives of councillors, but up to you if you want to post libellous statements alleging corruption I guess.

Can anyone who lives near Forthbridge say where their children go to school now, and why Wix is not considered to be a good option when it seems that this is also a good and improving school? I am really interested to know - to establish what "choice" is actually out there. Until the idea of the Belleville expansion came up, what did people around Forthbridge think of the education already available? Had they been asking for a new or improved school on their doorstep?

At the moment everyone is fighting over the prize of Belleville when the council needs to be pressured into providing more places at more good schools. No point being confrontational to one another - we need to work as a whole to get the council to tell us what exactly they are going to do to sort out the big problem of lack of choice. Shifting places around between Forthbridge and Belleville residents doesn't solve that ultimately, it just leaves a whole load of people feeling as though they have lost out.

[rcourtney]

Basin,

I completely agree re Cllr P.Dawson, the Education Committee head.

Custardy,

I don't believe that Basin is saying Cllr P.Dawson is corrupt and her statements are definitely not 'libelous'.



We all know that property prices BTC are at a premium to near by areas because of the Belleville and Honeywell catchment areas. The NPV of a 'free private education' is large.

Cllr P.Dawson clearly has a conflict of interest when re zoning catchment areas. Firstly because of the obvious conflict that arises from being included in one of the zones and secondly because of the potential affect on his house price.

I'm sure if asked, Cllr P.Dawson would agree that there is a blindly obvious conflict of interest here.

Just my thoughts .. don't sue me ...

[monaco]

This discussion is really useful as it brings up so much information I didn't know and really help to give a round up view of things.

Seems to me that what we need now is to come up with alternative solutions or proposals so that the debate can progress.

Solutions offered so far
- consider a review of admission policies for all schools in the area AT THE SAME TIME (see my post about a Camp David of schools) and put the current proposal on the backburner until this has been achieved
- address only the issue of "paper renting" and not the distance criteria
- share the 30 additional places into 15 for Forthbridge residents and 15 for Belleville residents (I like that one)
- use the Bolingbroke Hospital site for a new primary school

Any other thoughts ?

[rcourtney]

Hi,

End of the day we all want more school places in good schools for our children. There is no easy answer, lots of us have a vested interest in steering this process to suit ourselves. We need to keep the bigger picture in mind and try and stay objective. People helping people - its powerful stuff.

Additional suggestions -

1) Run the Forthbridge Site under the Belleville management as a separate school for the children of the local area (Northside).

2) The proposal to extend the Belleville site could be revisited in addition to developing the Forthbridge Site.