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Why we must build school for the future
• THE governors and headteacher of Jack Taylor School, are looking forward positively to the new developments heralded by Camden’s involvement in “Building Schools for the Future.”
The plans to co-locate new special school facilities alongside a brand-new mainstream secondary school, present us with many exciting opportunities, and also many challenges.
We are fully committed to working with the local authority to ensure that these challenges are met, and that our new school will provide us with innovative solutions to the problems which inclusive education poses, and to make certain that we never lost sight of our aim of providing the very best education for children with a wide range of complex and severe learning difficulties.
Although change can be uncomfortable, it is nevertheless our way forward to the future – and we would ask all of our staff, parents and our partners in the community to look forward to the changes which the future holds. We strongly believe that by working together we will ensure that the best possible outcomes for the school, and its pupils, will be secured.
JTS GOVERNING BODY
Boundary Road, NW8
• CLLR John Bryant is being disingenuous in setting the record straight (Set record straight on school places, Nov 9).
The figures that he supplied refer only to pupils transferring to a Camden secondary school. The councillor states that the figures make an even stronger case for a secondary school in the north-west of the borough.
This conveniently sidesteps the fact that there is already a secondary school in that area, Quintin Kynaston, just over the border in Westminster. What effect would including that school’s intake have on the figures?
In the south of the borough, we do not have an accessible school in Camden, Westminster, or Islington. (Ironically, the school that used to be our nearest was Quintin Kynaston before it was relocated.)
Councillor Bryant also neglects to say whether the figures refer only to pupils transferring from a Camden primary school. In the area south of the Euston Road, we are also desperately short of Camden primary school places and many children attend primary schools in Islington and Westminster.
If the councillor’s figures are for pupils transferring from a Camden primary, the inclusion of these children would also affect the councillor’s figures.
If cost is to be the only yardstick, then the area to the south will never have a school. The council must conduct a proper investigation of need before making any decision on the location of a new secondary school.
In the meantime, perhaps the councillor would care to explain to my sons why it is impossible for them to go to the same secondary school as their best friends in their primary school class.
ALBIE FIORE
Bedford Place, WC1
• I WAS among the deputation at the Town Hall on Monday that asked the question: How are the current administration going to work with us to build a secondary school south of the Euston Road?
And how do they intend to redress the matter of a proper consultation with the public to find out what we think they should be spending the BSF money on?
Apparently a questionnaire went out in the back of a Camden newsletter.
Unlike many householders I pay attention to such publications, but even so, I have not seen anything. A proper consultation is required. Do residents really think that building another school at Swiss Cottage is going to benefit those in need of school places?
In fact a good question is, who exactly will benefit from another school there? A letter needs to go out to every householder – it is the only way to truly consult everyone. Anything less is just bureaucratic box-ticking, which clearly is not good enough.
We need a secondary school south of the Euston Road and louder and louder members of our community of all ages and all cultures are starting to ask the question: “Where is our school?”
JULIE RUMSEY
Chairwoman, New Calthorpe Estate TRA
• YOU gave extensive coverage last week to the suggestion from the Holborn and St Pancras Secondary School Campaign that the Royal Mail land at Mount Pleasant ought to be used for a new secondary school (A School Solution, Nov 9).
This is not a new idea. The Mount Pleasant site was one which the council considered for a new school site in the south of the borough earlier this year.
As with all of the sites we looked at, we applied the key tests of size, availability and affordability in assessing whether or not it was a viable option for a new school.
The land at Mount Pleasant is large, although as your article pointed out the majority of it is in fact in the borough of Islington.
However it does appear possible that a school could be accommodated on the site if it was available to the council at a price we could afford to pay. Unfortunately this site fails the tests of availability and affordability by a long way.
However, we will continue our dialogue with parents to explore realistic solutions to a problem we all wish to solve.
CLLR ANDREW MENNEAR
Executive Member for Schools
• PEOPLE are right to oppose the Tory-Lib Dem coalition cuts to the voluntary sector. The impact this will have on the most needy in our community reflects badly on us all.
What are these cuts going to fund? The capital to match fund the proposed new school being built at Swiss Cottage instead of south of the Euston Road, and displacing the school for deaf children?
This is just another example of riding roughshod over groups least well positioned to exercise the influence to prevent themselves from being the casualties of the Tory-Lib Dem cuts.
DOROTHEA HACKMAN
Chairwoman Camden Joint Chairs and Governors
• WHILE we are glad that Councillor John Bryant has recognised the need for a new secondary school south of the Euston Road, the figures he provides do nothing to “set the record straight on school places”.
Figures just like Mr Bryant’s were actually rejected by the Camden Schools Organisation Committee this March as insufficient. Simply showing the percentage of children offered a place in a Camden school tells us very little about the circumstances of those individual families, so these figures are not, on their own, proof of where the need is greatest.
Is it any wonder we are shouting the loudest when the council says it can’t afford to buy a site in our area?
The redevelopment of the Mount Pleasant Post Office, and the excellent site at The Eastman Dental Hospital both offer a real chance to make a difference to this unfair and unacceptable situation.
If you start listening, Mr Bryant, we won’t have to shout so loud.
POLLY SHIELDS, EMMA JONES
Millman Street, WC1
• I FEEL I must respond to the front-page story of last week’s paper about the campaign for a school in the south of Camden.
While I have a great deal of sympathy for the campaign, I must point out that the story has caused unnecessary concern to my members that work at Mount Pleasant because while there have been plans for a number of years to redevelop our site, the plans have never included the closure of Mount Pleasant as a Royal Mail facility.
The last time Royal Mail consulted with us at Mount Pleasant, their plans were to rebuild our working areas and in the space made available by building this new office, the plan was to use the land for a mixture of housing, shops and offices.
I have to say although Royal Mail remains a public service, the management of this service does not possess an ounce of social responsibility and profit would be the motive behind any redevelopment of our site.
To put it bluntly a school is a worthy thing to build, but it just wouldn’t yield the type of profit that Royal Mail would hope to realise from investing in a project of this magnitude.
ROGER CHARLES
Branch Secretary
Mount Pleasant International
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