littlek1cker

The Charter School has also written to Michael Gove about the need for a secondary school on the hospital site. Letter attached for info. Simon Tucker The Charter School New School Working Group

Thanks for alerting everyone to this Lou. How depressing indeed!

Hi redjam, When it comes to applying for a secondary school place for your child, you will obviously have to choose from the available options. We are asking you to say that, if there is a Charter school on that site, it would be your first choice. Obviously, for a Charter school to exist on that site it would mean that DfE had selected Charter rather than Habs. The point is, when it comes to choosing a school for your child, you will never have to choose between Charter and Habs on that site, since only one will get permission. So please do sign up to support us! I will also go back and check the exact wording we need to use to see if we can make it less confusing.

Hi James, I'm not sure why you felt the need to respond to my penultimate sentence - that parents should sign up for both bids. As you know we met with you and the Habs steering group last night to propose various concrete ways in which we might collaborate and avoid divisions within the community. I'd understood from several of your steering group members that they themselves had been telling parents to sign up to both bids. This seems sensible to me since there will only ever be one school on that site so no parent will in fact have to make a decision as to whether to send their child to a new charter school or a new Habs school. It also seems reasonable since several hundred of your signatories signed up before you had chosen your preferred provider. The point is, we just want a great new school on that site! Regards, Simon Simon Tucker The Charter School New School Working Group

Hi bawdy-nan, I think we have all been shocked at the tone of some of the discussion on this forum which appears to have come from people not associated with either campaign. The Charter School and the new school working group have run an entirely positive campaign. For the record, we have not had any interaction with Private Eye whatsoever. You also make a vague reference to "some of the tactics apparently deployed in pursuit of Charter's bid". That sounds like an attempt to sling mud in the hope that some of it sticks. If you can give me specific allegations we can address them. Regards, Simon Simon Tucker The Charter School New School Working Group

Hello everyone, My name is Simon Tucker and I am one of the local parents working with The Charter School on their proposal for a new school on the Dulwich Hospital site. I am posting now in order to give EDF readers another point of contact with the team working up the The Charter School?s proposal so you can ask any questions you may have. Just to restate the facts for anyone coming to this fresh; there are two schools currently preparing proposals for a new secondary school on part of the Dulwich Hospital site. Both schools have a lot of support from local parents and personally I think that a new school run by either Habs or Charter would be wonderful news for local parents. The decision as to whether we will get a Charter or Habs school on this site will be made by the Department for Education towards the end of the year. The availability of the site is still not certain but we are very hopeful. We are currently consulting widely with the community as we put our proposal together. We are planning a public consultation event on 19th June ? more details soon - as well as other things in the pipeline. If you would like to show your support for a Charter school, please e-mail [email protected] with your name, your post code, your child/children?s date(s) of birth and please state that you would be likely to put a Charter School on this site as your first choice for your child when applying for secondary school. All parents who want a new school should be signing up to BOTH the Charter proposal AND the Habs proposal since if we can?t demonstrate enough demand for a new school, neither bid will be successful. If you have any questions about our plans you can ask me on this forum or send a message to the above e-mail address or attend one of the events we are organising in the coming weeks. Regards, Simon Simon Tucker The Charter School New School Working Group

A thumb guard worked for my seven year old. She stopped within a week. I think she basically decided she didn't want to be the kind of person who had to wear such a horrible device. We only used it at night as she found the will power not to do it during the day. I wouldn't inflict it on a 19mo though. It really isn't very nice and quite demeaning if they have to wear it in public.

Our children go to Charisma Gymnastics at Dulwich College Sports Centre. It's extremely good but pricey. Oh, and there's a two year waiting list. But it really is worth the wait!

I would strongly support another school that could cater not only for those in East Dulwich in a secondary school vacuum but also those on Denmark Hill in the same situation. I would love to see a school that was co-ed, non-faith and with a focus on wellbeing and life/employability skills as well as academic qualifications. I have a child in year 4 and younger one too. From what I've seen, Harris and ARK schools seem very narrowly about discipline and attainment in core subjects to me and the new headteacher at Charter seems to be going the same way. There are lots of other providers - through my professional life I've come across at least a couple of dozen although I'm not sure which ones would be interested in this area. But James, I've got a couple of questions. I've actually been involved in setting up several schools based on a pedagogical model that I developed (with others). The thing is it is fairly easy, although very time consuming, to set up a mediocre school but very difficult to set up an 'exemplary' school. The ethos and admissions criteria of the school is also really important. So I think if you are asking parents to support a new school you have to at least sketch out the vision for what kind of school it will be. What do you have in mind? I also deal with NHS Property Services (who own the hospital site) in my professional life. They would have to sell the land at commercial value. Where will the money come from to buy the site? Would DfE provide the capital?