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Views ignored as plan for new school rolls on
• I AM dismayed that the Liberal Democrat/Conservative administration, elected only last year with a mandate for open, listening, responsive local government, have made such a mess of the consultation process over the new secondary school.
The Church of England publicly expressed interest in running the new school early in 2007. Since then their representatives have spoken about their vision for the school at four public meetings, three of them hosted at my church, about a mile from the potential site at Adelaide Road.
There has been a great deal of public support for their plans, shown in a number of different ways, including at Camden’s consultation meetings. And yet, throughout this whole process, the council did not ask the
C of E to submit a formal proposal for the school.
By contrast, UCL also apparently expressed interest in running the school over the same period, but not in public. In fact the councillors have denied talking to UCL and no UCL representative has appeared at any public meeting in Camden to talk about their vision for the school. There has been no visible public support for their plans and no mention was made at any of Camden’s consultation meetings. And yet I read that councillors are on the verge of deciding in favour of UCL.
Are we supposed to believe that secret talks with UCL have not been taking place? If secret talks have been taking place, how can there be a level playing field and how can the C of E bid be judged fairly? If secret talks have not been taking place, how can Camden be in a position to decide whether UCL can deliver what Camden wants on the basis of a short vision statement?
The only option that will be fair to all the bidders is an open competition. That too is the only way to get the best for Camden’s children. I can’t understand why the council might be considering any other option.
ALISTAIR TRESIDDER
Kidderpore Avenue, NW3
• THOSE of us living in the south of the borough are getting sick of being offered sympathy about the lack of secondary school places here. We’re very bored of hearing that there is no viable alternative to the council’s decision to site a new secondary school at Swiss Cottage.
And we resent the implication that by fighting for our community’s needs we are “standing in the way” of much-needed investment in Camden’s education. From start to finish, the council’s Building Schools for the Future plans have neglected the most important issue – that there is a huge and growing need for a new secondary school in the south of the borough.
The Kilburn councillors write that many children currently face great difficulties securing places in Camden secondary schools, and this is certainly true. What is also true is that this council has never bothered to get behind the anecdotal evidence to establish a statistically valid case for its school plans. It has failed to do the detailed analysis into patterns of parental need or preference, preferring to rely on statistics like those the councillors quote in their letter, which, until further analysis is done, are meaningless.
It is still reluctant to publish figures on future housing developments across the borough and the impact these will have on local populations (we have been asking for these figures for at least a year).It has a peculiar head-in-the-sand attitude about the fact that any secondary school at Swiss Cottage will be on the doorstep of Quintin Kynaston School. Given that both the head and the chair of governors of this school have indicated that QK will shortly be operating a catchment area which will be almost exactly the same as the Swiss Cottage school, this stance is beyond bizarre.
And it has never proposed any alternative to one FE secondary school, despite the fact that the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is prepared to consider two smaller schools, given the particular circumstances of this borough. While the mantra of ‘size, cost and availability’ is endlessly repeated as a reason to dismiss a school anywhere but Swiss Cottage, we have seen nothing to persuade us that any real effort is being made to address the chronic and worsening situation of families living in the south of the borough.
As we have said, and will continue to say, expanding South Camden Community School will not solve this problem. Nor will a naive hope that the provision of new school places will benefit all Camden’s children, wherever they live.
Meanwhile, the council congratulates itself on a job well done over its consultation process. Parents who overcame the woeful publicity given to these meetings and actually attended came away with the distinct impression that the decision had already been made, and that the meetings were held to tick boxes for the DCSF rather than to actually establish what parents in Camden want. The fact that UCL’s academy plan was only made public on July 4, after the consultation period had finished on June 29, demonstrates how irrelevant the views of the people of this borough are to the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) process.
If this partnership administration opts to go ahead with a UCL-sponsored academy at Swiss Cottage, and doesn’t run an open competition, it is not only riding roughshod over the clear and stated request of the parents of this borough, but it also ignores the government’s own guidelines which state categorically: “If a new school is proposed, then there must be a competition to determine the promoter.”
This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity must be used to transform educational provision for all the children of the borough, and to do this the council must do its research properly, listen to what the people of this borough want, and vigorously pursue a solution which will benefit those in the greatest need. If this isn’t done, the BSF programme is at best a stab in the dark, and at worst a stab in the back for the most needy children in the borough – those living south of the Euston Road.
POLLY SHIELDS
Millman Street, WC1N
www.whereismyschool.org.uk
• UCL propose to sponsor a secondary school in Camden, but are trying to hold the Council to ransom over it. Why should the people of Camden put up with this approach?
UCL are insisting on nominating a majority of the governors and do not want to enter a competition open to public scrutiny where the quality of their bid will be properly tested. A new school with community status could still have up to four sponsor governors nominated by UCL and work co-operatively with other schools. Such a proposal could command the support of most Camden residents as well as those working within education in Camden, including UCL staff.
Instead, UCL seem determined to be as undemocratic and arrogant as possible. Campaign for State Education urges the council to reject this power-hungry grab for control of educational resources that should guarantee the future of all our children and not just a select few.
LUCY ANDERSON
Chair, Camden Campaign for State Education
Lupton Street
NW5
• DO councillors have a teleporting scheme in mind (Siting new school was not a competition, July 5)?
Or are another 1,000-plus children going to asphyxiate Swiss Cottage every school morning. We know that busing in private school children is unacceptable. How will the extra pupils get to school?
MS GILLIAN ARNOLD
Hilgrove Road, NW6
• CAMDEN'S stated policy for its “once in a lifetime opportunity to transform Camden’s secondary school provision” is to “use BSF (Building Schools for the Future) to achieve the very best learning environments for children and young people in the borough and make sure that we have enough places for our growing population of young people”.
There is already a large population of young people in the south of the borough, and more are likely to arrive with the redevelopment of this area, as well as the King’s Cross regeneration and the proposals for the Mount Pleasant site.
Yet there is not one secondary school in the area for them.
Camden Council is not building schools for the future in the south. Indeed, it is not even building schools for the present in the borough.
Instead it is proposing to destroy two fantastic special needs schools in the middle of the borough and build nothing for the present (let alone the future) in the south.
If, as expected, the result of the token consultation exercise is that the council’s original plans are confirmed, it will have succeeded in frittering away this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by choosing the easy option that no one actually wants but which can be achieved without anyone in power having to do anything difficult, ambitious or requiring foresight or planning.
Meanwhile, those living in the south of the borough will be condemned to a future without hope of any proper state secondary provision in their lifetime, and probably in the lifetime of their children (if those children can be persuaded to stay living in an area so impoverished by the deliberate oversight of those in power).
RICHARD MORGAN
John Street, WC1N
• I GET very, very weary of the cheap falsehood that is going around as to the choices open to whoever might have been governing Camden just now when it comes to a possible secondary school.Any new schooldepends on satisfying the government’s requirement for such a school.
The funding on offer is not for what Camden might independently wish.
Type of school?
A key government wish here is to increase diversity. Where local areas are overwhelmingly providing community schools and lack any ‘academy’, funding is likely to be more readily available for
the latter.
If an academy, what kind?
Here, Camden does have a say and can offer a preferred partner. But watch the government’s timetable. Worked-up schemes need to be with them by a deadline – or the funding may again be lost.
A competition?
Fine. Only Camden will not judge this. A government-appointed adjudicator will, with all government preferences part of the brief, including the timetable. It would be great if Camden’s choice could be the result of an open competition, judged locally. That just isn’t part of the choice here. If we try demanding that responsibility, free from the sidelines, we risk any further school. And most of those pushing for this know this and are simply mischief making.
JANE SCHOPFLIN
Lib Dem Councillor, Fortune Green
• TRUE consultation and open competition seem to be firmly off the agenda where the Lib Dems and Tories are concerned if their recent showing in the Building Schools for the Future debate is anything to go by.
Having attended the majority of the BSF ‘consultation’ meetings, I don’t know why I was surprised, but last week’s offering was a complete farce. For every view expressed by a parent, school governor, teacher etc, there was a lengthy diatribe from the executive members or senior officers telling us why that view was wrong. Concerns at the lack of proper investigation into the competing need, and hence location for a secondary school, are simply brushed off. You can almost see the crocodile tears for children and families trying to find schools in the south of the borough.
At one minute we were told that consultation was only just beginning, almost the next Councillor John Bryant said that it would last until the end of this week! The blame for this tight deadline for consultation is laid at the feet of government, when it was this administration who decided to make the BSF bid in the current round and so limit the consultation period available. It was clearly their choice to rush this through.
Of course this “listening” council goes even further in its complete disregard for the voices of our communities. There is clear interest from parents in having either a church or community school and great opposition to an academy, but commitment to providing for an open competition for the management model of the new school is woefully absent.
If this is truly a listening council, we should see a measured response on these issues that will ensure we have schools in Camden fit for the 21st century. Our future generations deserve more than the quick fix they are currently being offered. Let’s have proper consultation, sensible research into alternative sites and an even-handed competition on the model for our new school.
CLLR HEATHER JOHNSON
Chair, Children, Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee
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