zamboo

It is absolutely correct that there is only one teacher left from last year's staff. Last year's year 2, 1, and one of the two reception teachers have gone, as have the Head and Interim Head Teachers from last year. No-one mentioned teaching assistants.

I mean it is and English-curriculum school with German extra-curricular activities. There are some German-speaking staff but all the lessons are in English except one class a week and an extra morning German class once a week. They said at the end of last year it would be years before it was really bilingual and everyone had been naive to think a true bilingual school could happen so easily. Yes, most of the old staff have left. Only one teacher is the same from 2013-2014. Lots of new staff have also left since the start of this year.

I have a child at Judith Kerr Primary School... we still have concerns about the facilities. There is still no permanent playground, no cafeteria. Lovely parents, but this is disappointing. Also, the school is NOT bilingual.

DaveR, I was using the word 'entitlement' in a general, rather than legal sense, and in response to some of the other posts here. The word is not used in the lease itself as a legal term, and indeed we do not have a copy of 'the terms of the lease' here to refer to anyway, aside from the tiny quote already mentioned from the school website, so quibbling over legal semantics is fundamentally pointless. I think we agree that the only thing Dulwich Estate has a legal right to do at this point is to apply for residential planning permission. As you say, whether or not it is granted is another matter. The argument for and against their moral entitlement to take this action is quite different, and I think more in line with the original post from Dadadada. There appears to be a number of misconceptions about the situation regarding the school's access to, lease and use of the land in question, which is why I added my post to the topic.

'If the earlier post as to the precise terms of the current lease is correct, then it is cut and dried - the Estate is entitled in the specified circumstances to require that lease to be surrendered and a new lease granted excluding the area currently used as playing fields. It's not a case of reversion, which occurs at the end of a lease.' The CfBT only have to surrender the lease if Dulwich Estate is granted planning permission for a residential scheme by Southwark Council. It isn't a case of Dulwich Estate 'requiring the lease to be surrendered'. They do not have an automatic right to use the land. They have the right to apply to use it. If planning permission is granted by Southwark council, then yes the lease will have to be surrendered and a new one will be drawn up. However, as planning permission has not been granted (or an application made), Dulwich Estate are not currently in a position to to require the lease to be surrendered. Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here, but this does not sound 'cut and dried' to me.

Those claiming here that the grassy space to the East of the Judith Kerr Primary school building is not 'part of the school' are in error, or have been misinformed. CfBT Trust (for Judith Kerr Primary School) took over the lease on the entire grounds from Kings College in mid 2013, including the grassy area. The original classification for the whole site was 'Research', and earlier this year the site, excluding the grassy area, was reclassified as 'Educational'. The grassy space is still part of the school, and is still part of the leased site, but with a different classification ('Research'). Dulwich Estate, as mentioned, has an 'option' on this area, which was part of the original deal when the lease was handed over from Kings College. They do not have an automatic right to the land. It is currently part of the school, by lease, and is currently being used by the school. The CfBT Trust cannot, under contract, obstruct Dulwich Estate's pursuit of developing the land. Under the same clause Dulwich Estate cannot, on the other hand, unreasonably withhold permission for the school to use it. It is not a 'cut and dried' case of entitlement on either side. However, one thing that needs to be made clear is that the area in question is currently part of Judith Kerr Primary School, and that there is no automatic reversion to Dulwich Estate. It is used as a playground, among several other things, and any claim that it is currently not in use is false.

Are you going to the school transition on Friday in Half Moon Lane? If you have been offered a place, there is also a forum on the school website (although a little difficult to use, admittedly). What did you want to hear about from other parents?

Just to add something re: Judith Kerr, for the parents asking about movement on waiting lists, the site of the school still hasn't been announced, so there are probably a lot of reception places hanging in the balance at the moment (50, plus some year one and two). That could add up to a lot of late rejections of places in other schools in the coming months. As I said in another post, not really the parents' faults (and not really JKP's either - they're still embargoed re. disclosure of the location), but this is something to be aware of.

number 2 - no offence taken. It's the chronic shortage of good places and the uncertainty of the application process that makes everyone passionate about it.

number 2 - I meant only until they had officially announced the exact location, which would be a deciding factor in choosing the school for some people. I wasn't suggesting that anyone should keep places in other schools for longer than it would take to decide after this, and nor has the school. I think it would be equally unfair to expect someone to turn down a good place that they had been offered by the local authority only to discover that the location of the new free school was impossible for them to get to. At the moment the announcement for the location of this particular school hasn't come. Nobody has suggested that you should keep two places simultaneously at the expense of others on waiting lists. At the moment, only provisional offers for Judith Kerr have gone out, and it was the acceptance of these that I was referring to. I thought that it was this issue that Lightweight was referring to.

Lightweight - re: Judith Kerr, this year only they are operating outside the local authority admissions, so you can actually accept the place offered to you by the council and the place offered to you by Judith Kerr without fear of losing either. From 2014 this will no longer be the case, and parents will need to select it via the council as with other primary schools.