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College would make a magnificent school
• I HAVE the perfect answer to Albie Fiore’s desperate plea for a secondary school for those who live south of Euston Road which not only ticks all his boxes regarding “need” and “planning for the future” but also ticks those of Councillor Andrew Mennear regarding “size”, “affordability” and “availability” (Give us a Church of England secondary, April 5).
The building in question is situated in Southampton Row and was designed by EW Riley and A Halcron Verstag (with input from Lethaby) for London County Council in 1907, and opened in 1909 as The Central School of Arts and Crafts.
It is currently the home of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. However, the students, along with those in the Charing Cross Road and Clerkenwell buildings, will in the near future be relocating to The Granary on the King’s Cross site.
The Central School building has a purpose-built theatre named after he inspirational head of the theatre department, Jeanette Cochrane, under whom I was lucky enough to study in the early 1950s.
Apart from large classrooms, this solid stone building has a lecture theatre, workshops, common rooms and a canteen.
It is within a stone’s throw of the British Museum, which surely must rank as one of the best teaching resources in the world.
Holborn Library, with its exemplary Local Studies Centre, is within easy walking distance, as is Oasis Sports Centre and the sports facilities of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, while workplace opportunities for students, at theatres, hotels and businesses, would be unsurpassed.
In short, this building would make a truly magnificent secondary school that parents living south and north of the borough would be proud of. However, in order to secure it Camden Council would have to act swiftly as there are rumours afoot that the college is planning to flog it to a property developer for conversion to yuppie apartments.
In order for this not to happen, parents should enlist the help of MP Frank Dobson, so as to put pressure on Camden to give this building serious consideration.
I believe the government has already given a ‘pot’ of money to provide a much-needed secondary school with the proviso that it is promptly spent. I therefore suggest that this ‘pot’ be used as a deposit to secure this building for the borough, with further monies being put aside to fit it once it has been vacated.
As inspirational and skilled heads are rarer than hen’s teeth, may I also suggest that parents and Camden’s education department start searching right away for someone who is capable of leading a co-educational, non-denominational school, open to all faiths and non-believers alike.
MARIAN KAMLISH
Park Village East, NW1
• I BELIEVE strongly, like my counterparts in the Where is my School? campaign, that the campaign in South Camden is not lost and is growing in momentum everyday.
As a representative of the Muslim community in King’s Cross and surrounding wards, I am happy to report that the Muslim voice is adding weight to the campaign. As Fiona Millar’s article in The Guardian newspaper last week stated, the case for a school is already proven. Only bureaucratic and financial questions stand in the way.
Official figures show the ethnic make-up of a parent-promoted school built in the south of the borough will serve 34 per cent Bangladeshi, 29 per cent white British and 12 per cent Black African children. The parent promoters see that an urgent mission for the school is to bring all faiths together and build community cohesion between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Muslim children (especially Bengalis) statistically have been under-performing in education over the years. The new school will be an opportunity for Muslim parents to help raise the educational performance of Muslims and the under-privileged in this community by taking an active part in the way the school is formed and run.
The school will be a model for success in multi-cultural Camden. These ideals are daily stated by the Department for Education and Skills and Camden Council, but if they fail to properly address the problem of buying a site for the school before the deadline in the autumn set by the Building Schools for the Future programme a golden opportunity will be lost and they will fail another generation of our children.
The matter is urgent. We will not stand back and let our voices be ignored and we will not settle for empty promises. We will be the first to succeed to show that parents’ concerns come first and business interests come second, and that the Muslim community and the other communities are united and working to understand each other.
AMAD UDDIN
King’s Cross Muslim Cultural Centre and Mosque
Supporter of Where is my School? campaign
•AS a child I attended Hampstead Parochial C of E Primary School for three years. These three years were some of the happiest of my school life as I felt as if I really belonged in the small school community. Much of this was due to the Christian ethos the school adopted.
I was provided with a superb education and achieved very good results at key stage 2. Now, having successfully trained as a key stage 2 and 3 teacher, I have gone back to work at the school that gave me the best start in life – Hampstead Parochial C of E Primary School.
The fact that 13 C of E primary schools are popular with both Christian and non-Christian parents within Camden is testament to the successes of C of E schools. Two C of E primary schools in Camden have received “outstanding” reports from Ofsted in the last month.
Camden has the highest number of C of E primary schools in London, yet it is the only borough that has no C of E secondary school.
I believe a C of E school can provide an environment for all children.
It is important to remember that a C of E secondary can be representative of the diversity of Camden through its intake of children from multi-ethnic and multi-faith backgrounds.
This in turn will allow children to understand and appreciate other cultures and religious traditions.
DANIELLE WILSON
Oakhill Park, NW3
• THERE is a group actively campaigning for a new Church of England secondary for Camden. We are called A Church Secondary School for Camden (CSSC).
We are essentially a broad-based community group comprised of individuals who believe a new Church of England secondary is the best option for Camden.
Our website, which explains in more detail the nature of the campaign, is at http://cssc.squarespace.com
FIONA DORMAN
A Church Secondary School for Camden
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