Stories + Views
£13m for Wandsworth free school site despite outstanding local school 1 mile away!
Having axed millions from the BSF programme in Wandsworth, it has come to light that the building for the proposed Northcote free school, Bolingbroke Academy, is going to cost £13m! It is clear that the council are supporting affluent parents who don’t support existing local schools (only 27% of 11-15 year olds in this area attend Wandsworth state schools) in diverting funding to set up their own school. At the same time, elsewhere in Wandsworth, pupils and staff at Elliot School are working in classrooms colder than the legal minimum because of the poor state of repair of the school! This is what happens when you allow self-interested groups of parents to campaign for their own school “free” from sensible planning of resources by the council. As I have mentioned on this site before, there is an outstanding local school only a mile away from the site of the new school which the vast majority of people in the area would have got into based on published admissions distances (had any of them actually applied).
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There is something very worrying about this Bolingbroke development. The school is planning to take from four feeder schools which appear to have highly favourable catchment areas and intakes. The most affluent of the primaries will get a third of all places ( under a simply distance criteria which sponsors Ark use in all their other academies, those parents would probably not get a place for their chidren in the new ‘free’ school).
All attempts by local residents to ask for the numbers of pupils on free school meals at those four primaries are met with a wall of silence, although looking at other publicly available indicators it is clear they have fewer EAL students and fewer pupils from minority ethnic communities than the Wandsworth average.
Meanwhile there doesn’t appear to be a significant shortage of secondary places for pupils in that area. Most of the children at these primary school could get into the ‘outstanding’, although socially and ethnically mixed, secondary school that already exists nearby.
That school will now suffer, along with other Wandsworth secondaries, from a lack of investment while a new school that may not be needed is receiving money simply to meet the wishes of a group of parents who don’t want to use their existing local schools.
Other parents in the area are now demanding more public information about school place needs and the planning process. For more information about that, log on to their petition.
This story appears to confirm the fears many of us have about how some free schools plan to use their ‘autonomy ‘ to engineer their intakes and meet the demands of a narrow segment of their local communities.
Fiona, Laura – can you clarify something for me? Elsewhere on the site Laura you write: “The group also claim that they are looking to set up a socially inclusive school but unfortunately the site they have selected and all materials published so far, which suggest that admissions will be based on distance, mean that this is expected to be a school significantly biased towards the most affluent families”. While above Fiona you write: “The school is planning to take from four feeder schools which appear to have highly favourable catchment areas and intakes”. Which policy are you objecting to – you can’t have it both ways? If it helps, FSM stats are freely available on the edubase website – not sure what the ‘wall of silence’ is that you refer to?
Hi Jon, I think this has been clarified now as you have now put your proposed admissions criteria into the public domain. You will take from four feeder schools with the majority of children coming from two larger schools – one of which has just over 5% on FSM, the other which has just over 13% on FSM ( quite low figures by inner London standards). A smaller percentage of pupils will come from local schools with more disadvantaged intakes but the most disadvantaged local school won’t feed into Bolingbroke. Is that right?
I am sorry you appear annoyed by these questions. Many people are interested to see how some ‘new’ academy schools are planning to use their freedom to manage their admissions.
Fiona
Hello Jon. The data is interesting… Honeywell and Belleville would be expected to secure 75% of places – only 5% of Honeywelll kids receive free school meals and only 14% of Belleville kids. It is encouraging that High View and Wix are included with 41% and 31% of pupils receiving FSMs. However, as these schools will only get 25% of places, it looks like the average % on free school meals in the new school will be ~17% compared with the 26% LA average. You have excluded one potential feeder school, Falconbrook, which is nearer than Wix, but has 60% of kids receiving FSM . The existing oustanding local secondary school within a mile, Chestnut Grove, has 39% of children on free school meals and your other nearest school Battersea park has 43% of children receiving FSM. No sense then that the free school is going to be serving mainly the affluent few who currently shun local schools?
Yes – 17% on FSM is very low for an inner London secondary school. Maybe it is time for a co-ordinated LA wide look at admissions, with all schools required to work together to ensure a more even distribution of FSM and ability rather than allowing some schools to use their freedoms in this way while others pay the price.
Something for the Local Schools Network to suggest to Michael Gove, if he ever replies to our letter!
I am glad you found the edubase website so useful. Incidentally Laura, we intend to exclude the fee paying students from Wix (as per our school website) – so can you tell us what the FSM stat is for the non-fee paying students at Wix? Also, pro rata, Wix and Highview equate to 33% not 25% of the cohort (and one might also reasonably net off most of the indy school kids?) What admissions policy would you suggest? Not too sure why you think I ‘appear’ to be annoyed Fiona, merely trying to clarify your contradictory statements – am as happy as a sandboy. Glad to see that your colleague Francis was impressed with ARK Schools – at least we agree on something!
Fee paying students? In a state school?!
We can debate the minutiae of data but it is clear that this school will be have a signficantly more affluent set of pupils than the other secondary schools within a mile of it. And, that one primary school which is particularly high on FSM pupils has been excluded despite being a similar distance away as one of the feeder schools you have included. I would suggest that the parents of Honeywell and Belleville children send their children to our existing local state schools which they could easily get into… rather than using a spurious argument about the lack of a local school to justify setting up a new school that is diverting funds from existing schools and is clearly skewed towards the more affluent in our Borough.
I was sorry we did not get more time to chat in Manchester recently Fiona at the BCSE event – Wix for example is an interesting set up, to do with bi-lingual streams – you should come and visit. I would be glad to show you around? We visited recently, worth a trip. Clearly Laura you have no wish to ‘debate the minutiae of data’ in much the same way that you refused to allow me to remain in your Facebook group – I was very much looking forward to an honest and open debate with your friends and family but it was not to be. You are quite right to be concerned about use of scarce resources – what are your views on £70 million being spent on just two state schools near where you live in Tooting? Is that a good or bad thing in your opinion? Thats another question you keep failing to answer. No matter, I’m off to watch Sarah Beeny.
Plus, even if we use your numbers Jon (although I would argue they overstate the number of kids actually still in certain schools by year 6), you still only get to FSM % of ~19% so still not very representative of Wandsworth and vastly different from the nearby secondary schools!
Also Laura, as I am unable to answer questions directed at me on your Facebook page by Jane and others, you might like to post on my behalf that ARK will be ‘running’ our school and not the parents. And as Francis has written about elsewhere on this site, ARK are very good at what they do. Overall, 26% of academies this year were judged to be ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, compared to 18% of maintained schools. Multi academy sponsors such as ARK do even better. Further – attainment of pupils receiving FSMs (as we will have) improve faster in academies than in other schools.
It is also true that a higher percentage of academies were judged satisfactory or inadequate than maintained schools so becoming an an academy is not necessarily a magic bullet that guarentees success for a school. Some providers may not be as good as a good local authority.
Moreover a lot of academies have increased their performance ( in exam terms at least) by subtly changing their intakes and losing their most challenging pupils, which is why we should all be working to ensure that admissions and exclusions are managed fairly across ALL schools in a given area. In spite of everything I have read here, this appears not to be happening in Wandsworth, a borough already blighted by partial selection in some of its secondary schools. This is one reason maybe why a far smaller percentage of parents in Wandsworth get their first choice of school than in many other parts of the country. Introducing more free schools that can manage their admissions to suit one institution is unlikely to improve that situation.
Fiona – can you produce some data with sources to back up your somewhat sweeping statements? You might also like to answer a question that Laura does not want to address for some reason, as to what % of parents at the 8 closer primary schools than Honeywell to Chestnut Grove (CG) actually send send their kids to CG? One assumes based on the logic of what Laura says, that the answer is 100%? But then again, if that were the case, the furthest catchment place would not extend to Honeywell based on cohort numbers at these 8 closer primary schools. For example, at Ravenstone primary alone, there are 450 total pupils. While at Henry Cavendish primary, there are 455 total pupils. Forgive me for saying, but there does appear to be double standards at play here. All Laura says in reply to this question is that those other 8 primary schools are not campaigning for a new school. So is the logic here that if we were ‘not campaigning’ for a new school, then it would actually be ok not to send our kids to Chestnut Grove? Bottom line is that there are an awful lot of other primary schools that should support their closest secondary school, before the finger is pointed at Honeywell parents – whose only crime seems to be that they are largely middle class and would like some choice as to how best educate their children, other than being dictated to by the likes of Laura, who would (does?) insist that we send our children to the school that she alone decides is best for them.
Happy to provide data. Local authorities report the proportions of pupils getting their first choice of schools. Wandsworth consistently comes bottom. In 2009 just over half got their first choice. In areas where there is less selection, more pupils tend to get into their first choice schools. The Ofsted Chief Inspector’s Report is available here and states that 35% maintained schools were satisfactory or inadequate. That figure was over 50% for academies.
Jon, you already have an outstanding school on your doorstep which obtained the ninth highest score in the country in the latest Contextual Value Added league table doing an impressive job for its 39% of children receiving free school meals. The partial selection in Wandsworth is definitely a part of the problem – interesting to note that a few years ago, parents from this same area were campaigning to increase selection at a high-performing school on the other side of the Borough (reducing the places available to the less affluent area immediately around the school) on the grounds that more selection would give them a better chance of getting there kids in. Not an encouraging precedent.
“their kids” I should have said…
Laura – it appears sadly that the ‘moderation policy’ on this site leaves a little to be desired. My two later posts from last night have yet to be added, while clearly your own posts from today have already been passed ‘fit for consumption’! It appears that your anti-free school gang shy away from open and honest debate. People will draw their own conclusion as to why that is.
Laura – in reply to your post at 8.16am, I can only repat that there are a significant number of primary schools that are closer to Chestnut Grove than Honeywell – 8 in total by distance. I think those are the parents that you should be focusing on to attend their local school. In terms of pupil numbers, the council has estimated that we will need 1,700 additional pupil places by 2017. We are helping solve that demand in part by opening a new school to the east of the borough that simply does not have a local secondary school at the moment. Many of our schools were shut down in the past, hence why there are none today. The borough has state secondary schools to the north, south and west – but not where we live. And as you well know, our campaign has received cross-party support including Ed Balls and the Labour party. Martin Linton was the key driver at the start of our campaign. Like Fiona Millar, we believe in local and inclusive schools, which is why we have gone with the feeder school policy, to give the lower income kids at Highview and Wix the ability to attend our school – ie, a local comprehensive intake for all abilties and backgrounds. Like you, we do not agree with selection, which is why we did not pursue a banding policy. So please don’t confuse the issues. Soley ranking schools by CVA is a very narrow and selective benchmark to use in my opinion. Ultimately our campaign is non-political and is about choice. To us, what matters is what works.
Jon: Chestnut Grove has approximately 40% of its students coming from out of borough. A similar proportion of Honeywell children go on to private school. Is the hidden motivation for the NSC to have a private school paid for by the state and is this also why I have heard from a parent at Honeywell that the NSC is unhappy about ARK’s inclusion policy?
I have looked at the pictures advertising the “Bolingbroke Academy” and am struck by the lack of diversity in the students portayed – is this really such a good idea. You claim that you want the children from your area to go to school together and not to be split up, how does this help their social development?
Given that Wandsworth Borough Council expect a 4 year old to travel from Balham to Clapham Junction to get to school, surely 11 year olds can be expected to travel a bit further.
I don’t actually expect honest answers to the questions. However, given the poor state of some of the school buildings in Wandsworth and the capacity for expansion of Battersea Park and Elliott, I can think of better ways of spending £13million than to buy a building. Who will be paying for the conversion – my council tax again, I assume.
Jane – everyone involved in campaigning for and setting up the Bolingbroke Academy, (ie, DfE, the council, parent campaigners and the sponsor) is aware that the location of the site is in a largely middle class area. But that does not diminish the legitimacy of the argument that there are few secondary places to cater for families living in our community. PfS and the council have looked for alternative sites, some of which might have attracted children from a wider area, but there are no readily available sites that could be adapted at reasonable cost and within the timescale required to meet the need for additional places in our community.
That is why we tried to develop an admissions policy that would broaden access to the school beyond those who live in the streets immediately around it. The feeder schools policy is an attempt to make the school less exclusive not more.
Of the feeder schools, Belleville and Honeywell (whose pupils would otherwise have ‘first call’ on grounds of distance to the school gate), have lower proportions of pupils on free school meals. This is likely to change if Belleville alters its admissions policy to make its satellite site a’second front door’ so that children close to either site will have an equal chance of admission. This is turn would also broaden the range of children who could get into Bolingbroke. In the case of Highview and Wix, their proportions of children on free school meals are 41% and 31% resepectively, both more than double the national average.
ARK’s standard admissions policy is to admit by straightline distance criteria to the school. In most cases, because most of its schools are in areas of considerable deprivation, this ensures that local children cannot be ‘priced out’ of a choice. In this case, because the only available site for the school is in a mostly middle class area, all parties agreed to try to develop an admissions policy that extended choice more widely and brought in a wider group of children. So the reverse logic applied. Short of moving the site elsewhere there are not many other fair solutions available. The truth is that the NSC pushed for the feeder school policy and ARK has been happy to support that. We must be looking at different pictures advertising our school but in any event I am not sure what point you are trying to make here?
As I have stated before, you have the same choices as many other people in the Borough. I live in Tooting some 2 miles from you and have the same choices except that my nearest non-selective mixed secondary school, (which is the same as yours – Chestnut Grove) is half a mile further away for my children to reach than those living in your area! I understand that people in your area want more choice but you are not really in the best position to work out whose needs are greatest. That is why we are campaigning for the local authority to carry out a proper assessment of where places are needed in the Borough and expand schools/create new ones accordingly! I note that the Council report of meetings held in recent weeks states the comments of the Director of Children’s Services that: “The Council would welcome the [free school] proposal if there is a proven need to establish the school to meet parental demand and increase choice and diversity” http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=12536. So despite the move to purchase the building, it looks like even they aren’t fully convinced yet that the case is proven!. Perhaps they’ve noticed that you have an outstanding school only a mile away that only 1% of kids in your ward attend!
Sorry Jon, I missed your concerns about my dictating everyone’s school choices! Of course people have a choice of where to send their kids and some people (in primary schools in various locations) choose not to send them to Chestnut Grove, that’s up to them. However, you have run a campaign to extend your choice which is misleading about the facts and asserts that a school is needed in your area in particular as you have less choice than others. As you know, this is just not true. Your own campaign summary claims that “we struggle on distance grounds to gain access to the successful borough schools” and that there is “no secondary provision” in your part of Wandsworth (save the 2 schools which are but a mile away, I presume?) http://www.thensc.net/downloads/NSC_summary.pdf I guess you do consider Chestnut Grove to be a successful borough school? It looks like it because on your campaign website front page you state: “No school. No chance. Last year, our closest secondary, Chestnut Grove, received 777 applications for 150 places” http://www.thensc.net/. You fail to mention that most people in your area would have got in had you actually been amongst the 777 who applied. I do think it would probably be better if people did send their children to their local schools. However, the issue here is whether one group of self-interested parents are best placed to decide where a new school should be located! Clearly, they see their need for more choice as the primary concern. Perhaps someone a little more impartial should be looking into this before spending vast amount of our money on it? As representatives from ARK have been speaking at conferences lately asserting that you have no school in your area, I can only assume they haven’t been given the full facts either…
I agree wholeheartedly with Laura; the secondary school problem in Wandsworth is borough wide.
If, like us, you are a non church going family, then your choices are even more limited. I have always maintained that a lot of the dissatisfaction about school places in Wandsworth stems from the fact almost everyone puts a certain high performing school as their first choice. When my son was doing his year 6 test, the minimum pass mark for the school in question was 98%; a figure that was given to me by an employee at Wandsworth Council. Any child from any borough can sit the Wandsworth test. Therefore if there is a choice between a Wandsworth child with a 89% score and a Croydon pupil with 98%, then the Croydon child will get the place. Most parents aren’t aware of this, although it is common knowledge amongst teachers in the borough.
The following link would appear to confirm a lot of what I have said;
http://www.balhampeople.co.uk/news/Wandsworth-Schools-victim-success/story-4486575-detail/story.html
If we had fair admissions policies to enable children in the local community to attend their nearest school with no selection, that would help a lot. It is clear that the new free school will increase segregation in local education (given the vast chasm between its intake and the average intake of nearby secondary schools) regardless of the feeder schools plan. I also think the data that ARK used to determine that this admissions policy was the most socially inclusive should be made publically available so we can judge for ourselves.
Some of the later points are starting to address the issue of the number of places taken at Wandsworth secondaries by children travelling from out of Borough – this affects Chestnut Grove and also Graveney school, either of which most parents would be happy to send their children to, as they are highly rated. Elliott School in Putney desperately needs money spent on the fabric of the building – how can it be fair for so much money to be spent on purchasing the Bolingbroke site? If the Council was using the receipts it got when it sold John Archer & Walsingham to fund the Elliott improvements it wouldn’t be quite so unfair, but not seen that suggested as yet. Finally, in all the debate about FSMs have I missed any points about the ethnic mix of the proposed school? Falconbrook is very different, and not just because it has a higher percentage of children on FSMs – it is also a mixed inner-city primary, as are Sacred Heart and Christchurch, which are nearer than Falconbrook to the Bolingbroke site. All 3 should be feeders, why Wix which is further away? Or is there another reason for the choice of feeder schools?
I totally agree Leonie – it is very odd that the feeder schools can be decided (although there is currently a consultation so this might change) and no specific rationale or facts published as to why it makes sense/is fair etc. As they are consulting (about whether we want the school at all as well), it is possible to add your views online at http://www.arkbolingbrokeacademy.org/secondary/Have_your_say/. Who knows how seriously comments will be taken but it’s worth a try.
I am furious that Wandsworth Council is supporting this group of affluent parents who want to set up a school at the Bolingbroke Hospital. This will be a school for the privileged people of this increasingly exclusive area and it will have a detrimental effect on the state schools in the area. I think that Wandsworth Council should be ashamed of themselves for supporting this. Also from a selfish perspective I live in Broomwood Road where we have to tolerate all the coaches that transport children to and fro from Thomas’ school which is in Broomwood Road, but also for all the children who are taken to Dulwich college and other surrounding schools. If the Bollingbroke becomes a school we will be inundated with yet more coaches and parents in their chelsea tractors.
I’ve heard that the £13 million is coming out of Wandsworth’s primary school budget. Does anyone know any more about this?
Jon – it’s great that you’re taking the time to discuss on here. I’ve learned a lot from reading this thread. But there does seem to be one issue you are not addressing – I wonder if I can tease a response from you. Essentially, why do parents in your area invariably not apply for a place at Chestnut Grove? Since children are habitually sent further away to go to schools which are selective in some way (faith, ability, fees), it can’t be distance. Is it, as many suspect, that there is a desire for your children not to be taught with a socially and ethnically diverse group? Or is there another reason?
Warren, having re-read my posts above, there really is nothing I more can add to what I have already posted at length on this thread. It is interesting however that Chestnut Grove now wishes to convert to academy status – the head, governors and 75% of parents all favour the additional freedoms this would bring. One wonders if the local anti-academy group will now continue to hold their meetings there?
@ Warren – Please see link below for accurate information about parental support for Chestnut Grove’s possible academy status!
http://www.chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk/academy-status
Given what’s happening in Wandsworth perhaps becoming an Academy is the only way to survive? I certainly know that this is the thinking at the school I’m at!
@Francis – Hmmm. I’m guessing that a lot of schools see it as the only way of getting the money that they were promised under BSF.
I find it troubling that schools are using this line about BSF to try and persuade parents to support academy status. Having followed all the discussion about BSF, from its cancellation through the setting up of the James Review ( I am chair of governors of a school that had ALL its money withdrawn). I am not aware of any evidence that academy conversions will be prioritised. Similarly claims that converting schools will benefit financially over the longer term need to be treated sceptically. The funding formula for all schools, including academies , is to be changed. Current budgets are only protected for a year. Schools that make lavish, and inaccurate, claims like these must be pretty desperate.
Saskia – I wasn’t aware I had posted anything inaccurate about CG. But your link is helpful so thank you for flagging that – your link shows the reasons why the head, governors and parents see benefits to academy conversion. Do you still recommend we send our children there or is this now a bad thing in your opinion?