Last week, the Council, in the shape of Matthew Paul, braved a packed hall of parents at St Stephen’s, to explain the 2 form entry plans for Orleans and St Stephen’s.
In brief, to solve issues around pupil capacity and catchment areas, the Council proposes to build 2 new classrooms, plus ancillary buildings, at St Stephen’s and 5 new classrooms at Orleans. Each school will then become a primary school, each with 2 forms serving Reception to Year 7.
Objections centred around three areas. First, how on earth do you squeeze 60 more children into St Stephen’s, especially as Reception classrooms have to be bigger. Second, how can you sensibly conduct building works on such a tiny site. Third, and for many the most important, it will split the community.
Speaking personally, if the proposals had been implemented 10 years ago, all three of my children would never have met their best friends, and we would have not met many of the people we know today. Football at Moormead would be fraught with inter-school rivalry, if it survived in its current form at all.
Yes, it can be a pain having to traipse from school to school. Done it, and patched up the scraped knees from the railway bridge as well.
But do we want to see St Margarets split in two? A lot of people work very hard for us to be seen as a homogeneous community, and not two villages separated by the A316.
The issue is that for full 4 form entry to work with the schools in their current form, Orleans builds only a handful of classrooms, but St Stephen’s need another 4, and frankly, it can’t deal with the 2 proposed.
So I have I radical suggestion: Swap the schools. Make St Stephen’s the infants school, using its existing 12 classrooms, and expand only the Orleans site. There is £5.2 million in the pot for this project, currently allocated £2million to St Stephen’s, and the remaining £3.2million to Orleans. In my scenario, most of that money can go on making a better job of Orleans, with a small amount being used to make St Stephen’s more appealing to the under 7’s. There are no building works, and the school capacity remains sensible.
It also solves the catchment areas issue. The Council contends that North St Margarets residents would not benefit from 4 form entry at Orleans, as it would just widen the net for those in Twickenham and East Twickenham. Well, this places the Infants school catchment area where it should be: In the middle of St Margarets.
Yes, the teachers and children might find the wholesale swap a bit disorienting, but the children will probably recover a lot more quickly than the staff.
I acknowledge there is a pupil placement crisis (not new, but a crisis nonetheless). Finally, money is available to deal with it. Let’s not waste the opportunity to create a proper village school system covering the whole area, instead of drawing a thick line down Broadway Avenue, and sending out the border guards.
– from Nigel Cannings
Comments
Seems like a good plan! Anything that moves the catchment north - and means others north of the A316 don't have to go what we went through (three primary schools in year) - must be a good thing.
However, even if the schools do separate, I don't think community split is really an issue. St Mary's primary is as much a part of St Margarets as Orleans Infants/St Stephens. They play football with (rather than against!) us at Moormead on Saturday and the majority of them go on to join most of our children at Orleans Park secondary.
Simon Fullalove on 2009-07-03 12:38:54 +0000Ah, the football's obviously moved on in the last year! Used to be that St Mary's had their own game in the corner away from the Orleans/St Stephen's crowd.
My point, really, was that as things stand, socially we all mix because we and our children meet people from all over the village. As a family, we know very few people with children at St Mary's, but a lot that we have met at Orleans and moved with to St Stephen's.
With two separate schools, serving different geographical areas, it is very likely that the North St Margarets people will not know the South St Margarets people and vice versa, and having worked so hard to eliminate that distinction, we will be institutionalising it.
Nigel Cannings on 2009-07-03 15:08:55 +0000What an excellent bit of lateral thinking Nigel!
I hope that the powers-that-be will be intelligent enough to take note and not display their usual "don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up" attitude...
Ed on 2009-07-06 10:08:49 +0000Although the solution of reversing the two schools is an interesting and laterally thought one, there is a big problem with it. That problem is one of admissions. St Stephen's currently has an admissions policy which prioritises Orleans Infant School children, but because it is a church school attenders at St Stephen's and other local churches also have priority for their children. This is not an issue at the moment as St Stephen's School is a Junior School dependent on Orleans Infant children to make up numbers.
If their roles are reversed, we would have a situation where St Stephen's would be massively over-subscribed as is Orleans Infant School now. A religious admissions criterion would leave the majority of the local community, who are not interested in attending church, completely stuck and would be far more divisive than the creation of two schools who would almost certainly work very closely together and would both feed into Orleans Park School.
Other problems relate to the sizes of classrooms at Orleans Infant School and the need for a different set of infrastructure arrangements, all of which have cost implications if corrected. Teachers could not just be "switched over".
On balance, from what I have seen, the two schools solution posed by the council is the most coherent way of dealing with the problem of creating an extra form of entry.
One additional approach, which might relieve pressure in the future, would be to modify the sibling rule by limiting sibling admissions priority to siblings residents within a set distance, say 2km.
I agree with Mr Cannings that what we need is to consider the community. I am sceptical as to whether creating two schools will fracture it. if the two schools work together, as they must in any event over the next few years, it may even bring people closer together. Our area needs strong and successful schools attended by people with a local stake and with local sympathies. It has them at the moment, but many people are excluded through a want of places.
We also need other community links. This site is an excellent one as it facilitates them. In North St Margarets we have a thriving Residents' Association with an emphasis on doing things that are fun. There are other local associations with a similar outlook. I think we are terribly lucky here to have a whole load of people who are committed to working together in various contexts.
Laurence Mann on 2009-07-08 10:52:54 +0000As you can imagine, I somewhat disagree, but that's partly because I am may not have made myself entirely clear.
My proposal is that St Stephen's physically relocates, as does Orleans. Thus, Orleans retains its current admissions criteria, as does St Stephen's. This moves the focus for infants admissions to the centre of the community. Liz Stubbs and her staff moves to the Orleans site, which now becomes St Stephen's, and we're done.
I think with the bulk of the £5.2 million then applied to the original Orleans site, any issues regarding infrastructure can be corrected. The existing proposals will cause these issues in any event.
Whether the community will be fractured by a two school solution is, obviously, speculation on my part, although a strongly and widely held view if the meeting I attended is any sort of evidence. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the current arrangement creates a sense of community from the very south of St Margarets to the north (where I live, incidentally). Changing that has to be a risk.
Nigel Cannings on 2009-07-09 11:47:25 +0000As you can imagine, I somewhat disagree, but that's partly because I am may not have made myself entirely clear.
My proposal is that St Stephen's physically relocates, as does Orleans. Thus, Orleans retains its current admissions criteria, as does St Stephen's. This moves the focus for infants admissions to the centre of the community. Liz Stubbs and her staff moves to the Orleans site, which now becomes St Stephen's, and we're done.
I think with the bulk of the £5.2 million then applied to the original Orleans site, any issues regarding infrastructure can be corrected. The existing proposals will cause these issues in any event.
Whether the community will be fractured by a two school solution is, obviously, speculation on my part, although a strongly and widely held view if the meeting I attended is any sort of evidence. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the current arrangement creates a sense of community from the very south of St Margarets to the north (where I live, incidentally). Changing that has to be a risk.
Nigel Cannings on 2009-07-09 11:50:54 +0000If you have not done so please visit the link below
www.st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk/expansionNews.html
Cllr Ben Khosa
Ben Khosa on 2009-07-10 13:21:44 +0000The one thing it doesn't cover, Ben, is this proposal. Instead, it attempts to scare future parents by saying that if you don't do it our way, you'll have to drive your children to Kew for school.
I have asked how the modeling is done. and whether it is computer driven, or a finger in the air. No response to date
Nigel Cannings on 2009-07-13 08:36:45 +0000I heard an ugly rumour that there are FIVE bulge receptions classes next year in the St Margarets cachement area! That they are going to put two at Orleans, in addition to the one they already have, and one at St Stephens!!!
This is completely ridiculous, neither school can handle that many extra children (think meal times, etc...) and what parent would want to have the only infant group at a junior school with no facilities for little ones.
If this is true, the Council needs to quickly remedy their ability to forecast these changes, force developers (like Brunel and Twickenham Riverside) to build more schools, or find some money and buy a site and build a new Primary school soon.
The current set of plans seems unappealing to all.
Andrea on 2009-07-13 09:03:44 +0000We were told at the recent meeting at Orleans that it would be known by now where the unallocated "bulge" reception class would be located - does anyone know what the final outcome is?
Not clear to me, Angela, how they could put a reception class at St Stephens, as that is not an infant school. I got the impression their favoured solution was St Mary's.
For the sake of Cllr. Khosa and his colleagues' electoral fortunes, he should be hoping this is correct...
David bertram on 2009-07-13 11:01:52 +0000I've only just noticed the reply by Nigel Cannings to what I posted. It makes what he proposes a lot clearer.
As I see it this would involve some changes to St Stephen's to turn a 12 classroom Junior to a 12 classroom Infants, and presumably also provide space for a nursery. This would still cost money, but surely not as much as the current scheme.
But the changes to Orleans Infant School would be a lot more significant. A 9 classroom Infant School would need to be turned into a 16 classroom Junior School. The nursery could be clawed back into general use, but I wonder whether it would not be necessary to do a complete rebuild. This is likely (looking at other comparable costs around the country) to cost between £5 and £6 million.
It's likely to be just too much money really. Also I wonder if the locality would appreciate effectively doubling the intensity of use at the school.
However I think there needs to be more thought about the community aspects of this matter. Would it be possible for the two schools to have a joint admissions board, with parents then choosing which site they prefer?
There is a need to get on with it however. The problem with almost any issue is that there is always a variety of solutions, some better than others, and some better than others at certain times only. One can spend so much time faffing around looking for the perfect solution that what opportunities there are are lost. The Borough has snaffled the funding for this project from the DCSF and from what I hear it will not get any more money and if it does not finalise its scheme soon it will lose what it has got.
We don't live in a world where the Government behaves in a rational manner. To get funding for even the most urgent and worthy cause requires jumping through flaming hoops and an ability to withstand frequent disappointments.
Laurence Mann on 2009-07-14 15:06:41 +0000From the little I have picked up about the academies programme, which is similarly rushed and irrational, I would endorse Laurence Mann's last 2 paragraphs. The Council has to make its mind up PDQ, whether we like it or not. It is not just a case of 'the search for the best is the enemy of the good' but 'a search for the best means getting nothing at all'.
Chris Squire on 2009-07-14 15:37:10 +0000