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The issue is how near you live to a school
• I am writing in response to Barry Jones’s letter about schools (Arrogant politician should be very proud of our schools, June 15.)
His angry attack on Councillor Sue Vincent makes it clear that he, like many people in Camden, is unaware of what it is like to have no local secondary school, and he is ignorant of the fact that large number of families live in that situation – working class, middle class, and ethnically diverse.
Mr Jones is very lucky to live around half a mile from South Camden Community School.
However, he is mistaken in claiming that South Camden School has the capacity for all the children in the south of the borough. In fact it doesn’t and our research shows that it never will.
Does he know that currently 46 per cent of the Year 6 Camden resident children at a Camden primary do not end up at a Camden secondary school? Or that only 54 per cent of students taken into Year 7 are Camden residents?
Is he also aware of the numbers of families due to live in the King’s Cross development, where a new two-form entry primary school is planned? Does he know that around 31,000 people live in the three Camden wards south of the Euston Road?
In his misguided and outrageous insinuations about Cllr Vincent’s “choice” of a school, Mr Jones is clearly mistaking parents’ desperate measures for dealing with this grossly unfair situation.
It’s not about the quality of Camden schools, Mr Jones, it’s all to do with how close you live to a school.
Like Cllr Vincent, I live about a mile from South Camden School. All of the other Camden schools are much further away. My daughter will transfer to secondary school next year. We have been told by the education authority that the best we can hope for is a place on the waiting list.
I will do whatever I can to ensure that my daughter is not left on a waiting list this time next year, just as I’m sure Mr Jones would want to spare his own child such anxiety.
So, Mr Jones, or anyone else interested in finding out more, please look at the website: www.whereismyschool.org.uk
You may even want to sign up to support our campaign.
EMMA JONES
(Address supplied)
• Thank you for your excellent report highlighting the plight of many children, living south of the Euston Road, who are unable to gain a place in South Camden Secondary School. May I inform readers through your letters page, that South Camden Secondary School was my first choice for a secondary school placement.
We were not offered a place, living beyond its 0.7 mile catchment area by just under half a mile – 0.459 of a mile to be precise.
Mr Jones, (Arrogant politician should be very proud of our schools, June 15) is ill-advised.
I am very proud of Camden’s schools – they just don’t reach my area.
Cllr Sue Vincent
(Lab) Holborn and Covent Garden Ward
Town Hall
Judd Street, WC1.
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