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School run review must not be wasted
• THE school run review is a great opportunity for Camden Council to find a solution that will actually solve the congestion problem in Hampstead. We hope this opportunity will not be wasted.
The existing policy completely ignores the reasons why parents drive their children to school and if the council fails to address these reasons, they will do nothing except cause safety problems and exacerbate congestion.
What the council fails to acknowledge or appreciate is that some of us have no choice and will therefore be forced to continue driving our children to school irrespective of the outcome of the permit review.
Even though parents have been well aware of the proposed permit policy changes for some time the lack of real alternatives means driving patterns have not changed. The challenge is therefore to find a solution that is workable for all parties.
There are lots of practical reasons why parents drive their children to school; in the state sector, children are not always given places at their nearest school or, for various valid reasons parents take the view that that their local schools are not the best choice for their children, for example if the local school is of a particular religious denomination or if it has a very poor record. Parents have a right to make these choices.
The heavy concentration of schools of choice in Hampstead means that parents often have no alternative but to travel into that area. There are far fewer schools outside Hampstead and they are heavily over-subscribed, and the chances of getting a place at those are slim.
The school we feel is most suitable for our children is housed in three buildings, two in Hampstead and one in Camden Town. From age eight our children will attend the Camden Town site, within walking distance. There is no other state alternative for that age group that is anywhere near as close to where we live. Unfortunately, the premises of the school for children up to the age of eight are in Hampstead.
Travelling from Camden Town to Hampstead on the Tube with a three-year-old and a baby in a double buggy is extremely difficult. There are problems at both Tube stations. There is no lift at Camden Town and there is a staircase to reach the lifts at Hampstead.
The bus journey is almost as difficult, with issues around reliability, having to change buses and the fact that each bus will only take one or two buggies. The round trip can take more than one-and-a-half hours and makes it impossible for us to fit around work commitments.
There are transport alternatives but they won’t work without practical support from Camden Council. These include issuing scratch cards to encourage lift sharing or to improve parent and child public transport along key access routes.
SIMON AND ANNE FOSTER
Albert Street, Camden Town
• I AM writing in response to the article you carried on March 8 about the new secondary school. I am firmly in favour of the Church of England bid. It will not ‘favour worshippers’ (as you reported) – it will serve its local community with places reserved for local children of all faiths and none.
The government says it gives parents choice about their children’s education, but Camden has seven non-denominational secondary schools and no CofE secondary school, despite the fact that Camden’s parents consistently choose CofE primary schools because they offer what parents want in terms of academic and behavioural standards as well as ethos.
CofE primary schools are more successful and more popular than Camden’s community schools. Average SAT results are higher in CofE primary schools and on average CofE primaries receive 2.62 applications per place compared to just 2.36 for community primaries.
A significant minority of parents – 14 per cent in Camden’s own survey – expressed the desire for a faith school.
However the overwhelming majority of parents want a secondary school that will deliver high academic and behavioural standards in a broad, inclusive environment and they know that the Church of England is most likely to deliver this for the children of Camden.
PENNY ROBERTS
East Heath Road, NW3
• NEW school uniform guidelines released for consultation on March 20 by Education Secretary Alan Johnson include the right for headteachers to prevent pupils from wearing the niqab – the full Muslim veil – on grounds of “safety, security and teaching”.
Mr Johnson is expected to defend the policy by arguing that “safety, security and effective teaching” are more important in schools than respect for the religious and cultural beliefs of the children who attend them.
He’s unlikely to explain quite how wearing the niqab in school would make Muslim girls unsafe, or why not seeing the lower part of children’s faces is suddenly such a security concern.
It’s clear that this is less an issue of ‘effective teaching’ than it is a continuation of the attack on the Muslim community through the issue of the veil.
The idea that the niqab is a symbol of separation and lack of intergration into British society is already part of the demonisation of the Muslim community.
The implication, intended or not, of these new guidelines is that Muslim girls who do not signal their ‘intergration’ in the way they dress are a threat to their schools’ security.
It’s hard to see how schools can continue to teach their pupils tolerance and diversity while implementing racist policies on religious dress. It is to be hoped that headteachers will see that, for the small minority of Muslim girls who wear the niqab, effective teaching means not being treated as a potential terrorist in the classroom.
MUKUL HIRA
Camden Respect
Chalton St, NW1
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