bornagain

Does it include the cost of the hosting?

What I mean is that some schools spend much of Yr 6 teaching to perform well for the SATs test (eg lots of test for practice). Once they get to secondary, these primary SATs results are not considered important (in fact misleading) as you can't compare like with like across all the feeder primary schools. As far as I know secondary schools all do their own CATs test early in year 7 to set their own benchmark for their students future assessment. edited for typos

'Habderdahsers' were interesting. They explained they'd seen dramatic improvement in primary school SAT scores but stable scores in non verbal reasoning scores used for banding.' Isn't that because you can coach for SATs but not for non verbal reasoning? I'm assuming that banding tests will be non-verbal reasoning. I understand that HA school if it happens in ED will have a different admissions model to Hatcham but still I'm not totally comfortable that the admissions outcome in their flagship school is not totally transparent. ETA notice there is another thread advertising an all-through school for Peckham and Nunhead. This will increasingly put pressure on parents to find the 'right' school at 4/5yrs, what a nightmare! For all sorts of reasons I'm totally against all-through schools.

What a nightmare . What a mistake that we've gone down this route of Academys ,Free Schools and not put the money poured into them to better use in improving LA ( and in my dream world inner london authority ) schools . Spot on as usual, intexas ;)

And yes it does look like a large nos transferring from the primary school are in the higher bands - 15 in band 1 and 10 in band 2 . That's interesting - so students who transfer from the linked primary is not included in the fair banding - that doesn't seem that fair to me. Given that this is the trend - to have primaries attached to secondaries (Harris Peckham is another like this) is it a loop hole that needs to be looked at?

intexasatthe moment Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you deduct the nos of pupils transferring from > the primary school the band sizes become more > equal . ? are you saying that those children already in the HA primary are in the higher bands? Can't quite get my head around this, could you explain?

Had a look at the booklet and it shows that there are many more students accepted for the top bands than the bottom for Hatcham College. Also the same for Prendagast Hilly Fields. All the other schools have equal numbers of pupils for every band. From this it seems that HA Hatcham is disproportionately admitting more able pupils ie is not comprehensive. For example, 33 was admitted for the top band but only 19 for the bottom. If the same number was admitted it should be 23 for each band. Is this the result of their music scholarship? Can someone explain what is going on here? This method of admission would not be acceptable if the school in ED was to be a true comprehensive. See attached for the table I'm talking about.

But also much hotter brezzo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Much much cheaper if you go over the border into > Spain

Yelloh campsites are great and there are loads dotted around France. http://www.yellohvillage.co.uk/‎

Got a load of the common old garden variety in my pond!

LondonMix, sorry I quoted you as the hook to discuss the relative inclusivity issues of the two schools, but the 'slagging off' reference is certainly not directed at you. You are always very clear and reasonable and full of informed discussion. I was referring to dadsarmy and others earlier in the thread. I will reword the post to make this clear. Offending post edited. I think it reads better too.

LondonMix said However, if the steering committee was specifically looking for a school with great inclusion policies (as reported in a previous post), clearly the events above regarding the Charter would have figured into their assessment of the ethos / governance at Charter vis-a-vis other potential operators as concerns inclusion. By contrast, Haberdashers has a specialised inclusion team at each of its schools. ----- I think we are all agreed that inclusion is a key factor in the selection of the new school. A part of the reason that Haberdashers is particularly hot on inclusion is because they were made to put their house in order about 5 or 6 years ago. It was criticised as being elitist with a pseudo-grammar intake. I think all potential students and their families were interviewed and the school population strangely did not reflect the surrounding area of the school. The school was far from inclusive and hence the fantastic exam results. Incidentally ED benefitted from this as many children got places although did not live that near the school. Lewisham stepped in and forced the school to change their admissions policy. They abolished interviews and started to take students strictly by geography (except for the music scholars). The exam results are now less good but the school is more inclusive. Part of this transformation was the annexing of a local failing primary school. I assume a large number of students come from there. I hope that in a similar way, the Wanley incident has made Charter apply its admission policy with more rigour. I think the moral of this tale is that schools change, they develop and hopefully each new incarnation is better than the previous.

Re: Charter's inclusivity, compare it's statistics to that of Dulwich Hamlet (one of its main feeder schools) Charter - percentage of pupils who were on free school meals any time in the last 6 years is 30.8%. http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=136298 Dulwich Hamlet - equivalent figure is 9.5% http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=136665 As I said earlier, a substantial chunk of Charter's catchment come from the council estates to the north of it, both this side and the other side of Wanley Way. Whereas Dulwich Hamlet has a very tight catchment centering on the Village.

dadsarmy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What a ridiculous claim by a charter governor > about admissions. > > You've had years of cherry picking highbrow > families that can afford to live in your catchment > area. > You've had plenty of time to make more places > available but you've failed the local community on > this. Hi dadsarmy, that is quite an allegation you make about a school. If you study the geography around Charter school, most of the northern quadrant is made up of several large council estates so the children from there attend the school in large numbers. I am not sure what you mean about 'making more places available' perhaps you could clarify? The fact of the matter is, The Charter School is not actually in East Dulwich so that is why most ED families are not in the catchment area. For more info click on the link. http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=136298 Attached is also a map showing the catchment area - Charter is in blue.

Hi James, All I am saying is that IF the Charter bid is serious then it is wise to feed into it so that SHOULD it win, the outcome is the one that the community wants - eg with respect to the admissions criteria. The final decision sits with DofE so you can't say at this stage which bid will win or not.

SplendidLikePeckham Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > What we need now is for the new school to get the > go ahead and be built as quickly as possible - 2 > years seems pretty tight. Given the steering group > have explained their reasons for choosing Askes > then anything that might slow down that process > should be avoided. I don't know whether Charter's > proposal might do that - but if it might, then > please Charter have a rethink. Were your counter > proposal to somehow delay the process and push the > school back by another year then I suspect there > will be an enormous amount of local ill feeling > towards you. > > If not then great - let the best proposal win, and > let's get this school up and running asap!! The Charter website says they hope to open in 2 years time. http://www.charter.southwark.sch.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=6&storyid=168 For those of you who are anxious about the situation for a new school, perhaps worth getting involved in this bid?

DaveR, I do not have to defend my views or experience to you. Yes the piece on Ken is interesting. Good to see him supporting that.

Xposted with Stateed This issue has become political with both a big and a little 'p' and very divisive. We now have Haberdasher-rooters and Charter-rooters throwing barbed comments at each other and this is not helpful. I think part of the problem is that many were led to believe that once James drummed up enough support for his vision and the steering group made their choice then it was decided. DofE would simply rubber stamp. Job done. It is a simplistic view - the real world does not work like that. For the sake of the community, let us have an open mind. Having two bids from two excellent schools surely is a great place to be?

I thought the piece spoke for many teachers present? and past. I started my career as a secondary teacher more than two decades ago. This was the time of Ken Baker, Maggie Thatcher and the start of the dictation of the curriculum from the centre through the imposition of the National Curriculum. We protested and striked, much like today but to no avail. I worked every weekend, every evening. In those days though we were lucky that generally holidays were proper holidays. We did not have to go to school during them to hold revision lessons etc. On the other hand, in the days before internet, you tube, even wide scale use of videos and photocopying, I had to write out every worksheet by hand and crank them out on the banda machine! I left after a few years, fed up, unwilling to work like this for the rest of my working life. It is depressing that the same old same old is still going on now. I think the teachers that I have met through my children's education are all fantastic. I respect them all. They are committed, professional and I hope they have more staying power than me. As for Gove, it is heartbreaking to see him reversing the curriculum bit by bit. I was around when GCSEs first came in. I remember how we teachers rejoiced in the freeing up of the exam system from the rigidity of the old GCEs. We were thrilled that the assessment should be criterion based and not based on normative ranking. All reversing now to the bad old days. The man is beyond contempt.

What ackroyd said. Quite agree with your comments about 'political or personal "wins"' - perfectly illustrated by a newsletter from the LibDems that landed on my door mat this pm. The headline says 'LOCAL LIB DEMS DELIVER ANOTHER NEW SCHOOL'.

The problem is with the system, not necessarily the actions of the individuals/institutions concerned. The free school system means that bids can be put in by parents/schools/religious organisations etc. JB group does not have any official standing no more than Charter school or any other group that may want to get together to bid for a free school. It is up to the DofE to decide.

Surely the point is that there was competition and a group considered applications and chose a winner. Well, that was the preliminary round ;) We are talking about the finals now.

Wow, I'm amazed by the fallout of this announcement. Judging from the posts much earlier in this thread (ie pro Charter) I thought that people would welcome a submission from the said school. Quite the contrary. I find that a bit puzzling. As a member of ED community with no primary age child's education at stake I would say that having two bids for the DofE to consider a very good thing. Given that the current free school system is more or less a market place, surely a bit of healthy competition would be good. Certainly the final product may be better than if just one school was in the bidding.

There is an empty boarded up plot with derelict building (old vicarage?) right next to Charter School. It's big enough for quite substantial building. intexasatthe moment Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Belle - James has expressed the opinion that the > DoE might suggest that The Charter expand their > existing site . > He regards this as a bad thing ,a " danger " . But > surely ,if that were possible ( and I have no idea > whether it is but presume James must have based > his remark on some knowledge I don't have ) that's > an excellent thing if speed is the prime motivator > here ? > I don't feel speed is the most important factor > here but surely for those of you who do , an > existing site is better than one that hasn't yet > been obtained ?

James, this was always going to be a danger when you are dealing with unplanned local provision through free schools. Effectivly education has been turned into a market place through central government policy. As the demand in ED is high, education providers will react to it. You are right that it is going to be a distraction for the schools but you need to blame the system not the schools concerned.