nicetomeetyou

Trine Adams Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi Rightlight, there is no campaign or movement > fighting for a move of the admissions nodal to the > Actress Pub on crystal palace Road! Letters and an > email sent to DKH and The Villa parents stated > that there is...and there isn't. > Such arrogance. You don't speak for the whole of the ED community. I know several people who supported the Habs bid and have been trying to influence Charter along precisely these lines. Of course there are a large number of ED residents proposing an alternative nodal point - anyone who went to the consultations (I went to two of them) heard them loud and clear. I've heard many people call for a nodal point into central ED "proper" to the east of Lordship Lane - ie, near the Actress pub. This would be the preferred option for many families in Peckham Rye and Nunhead and you can see why. Our friends at SPACE Southwark are specifically from schools in ED, Dulwich, Peckham Rye and Nunhead, so it would certainly be top of mind for them (see EDrant's 3:39pm post on page 4 of this thread). And also - the schools you mention and their parents were (are) completely and utterly justified in advocating for what makes sense to them and their families. All the Camberwell primaries would suffer if the nodal point shifted or there was a second nodal point. The intake at DKH is roughly a 450m radius. The school is just over 650m from Jarvis Road. That means some students are up to 1100m away from the proposed nodal point. (Lyndhurst is 1.25km away, but with a similar intake radius, so some of their kids are a lot closer and would have a shot as well.) Adding a second nodal point anywhere would likely cut the intake radius of both nodal points in half. That would absolutely put a huge number of these kids at risk of not having Charter 2 as a choice, and they already have a tough time with Charter 1 because of their well documented admissions policy issues. Several DKH parents supported the Habs bid over Charter specifically because of the lingering ill feeling. Trine, please stop arrogantly assuming you know what everyone in the community is doing and thinking.

The community is, in fact, working together to make this school the best it can be - that's obvious from the threads here. They just also have different views on what the end result should be, which makes it messy. There is no one "right answer" that everyone will agree on. But there is a process by which the people who are making the decision can hear what people think. My worry is that the OP is talking about a very narrow section of the community. We all have different interpretations of community. Which is fine. No one is impartial. Let's just not be disingenuous about it. People aren't all on the same page. Many people living in the wider community want to assure access to the new school, and the catchment area of the school will directly impact that opportunity. Other people want a diverse mix, or to ensure fairness in the way they define it. The government has also provided rules by which we need to abide. It's fine to work hard to advocate for your point of view, as individuals or groups. But what do we do once the decision is made? It's great that we have such passionate people taking part in the consultation. Once this consultation ends, will we all work on the other hurdles like planning, school design, site layout, temporary site provision? I hope that we can channel this energy even beyond this one school into a hallmark for high-quality state-sponsored education.

In the spirit of unity, I personally hope that once Charter arrives at their decision on their admissions policy, we in the community will accept it with grace. Some people will inevitably be disappointed - there aren't unlimited places, after all. And then, as the OP says, everyone should work together to help make this the best school it can be.

It's such a myth that ED parents were the only ones campaigning for the school, and that belief creates the sense of entitlement to places at the new school. At the consultations, Simon shows a heatmap of supporters which demonstrates deep support throughout SE5 and SE15 communities, and that despite the fact that the closest communities are estates, which, thanks to language differences and other outreach issues (they didn't put tables in the estates when they were drumming up support) didn't respond in large numbers. And still, CSED came up with the right solution, which we should all support. I didn't say this is Camberwell's saviour school - but considering one side of the school site actually borders South Camberwell ward (see http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=defaultmap&mylayer0=S_Boundaries_WardAndCouncillorsNew&x=533699&y=175390&z=7), I'd say the claim isn't far fetched. Fortunately for everyone on this list, I honestly believe a school size that's 50% larger (six forms, not four, as rightlight and others point out) than the CSRPH, with a catchment that could extend 2km away from the school and ease the pressure on the other schools to extend their catchments too, as redjam says will provide a great resource for all parents who want access. Then let's build some more schools.

Unfortunately, this seems like heat masquerading as illumination. The data doesn't support a second or shifted nodal point, and it's so patchy and partial, it was clearly designed to make a very selective point. To be clear, I'm absolutely in favour of more school places for children in South Southwark (SouthSouth? Anyone?). But there are a few issues. * This is very selective - only dealing with some of the wards around the new school, not including Brunswick Park or even Camberwell Green, which certainly in the early years will successfully apply for places in the proposed single-node (at Jarvis Road) Charter School East Dulwich (CSED). If you want to talk about need in affected wards, or placement of a second nodal point, the direction to head is north, not south. * To add any nodal point off the school site creates a qualitative selection, which the CSED proposal pointedly is trying to avoid. Why should middle class families in ED manufacture a result that cuts off the estates in Camberwell and Peckham? Isn't that the perception/problem that the original Charter School Red Post Hill (CSRPH) has been fighting for quite awhile? * Nunhead clearly has a need. This, however, really can't be Nunhead's saviour school. I begin to think this data was prepared originally to support the failed Haberdasher's bid (probably why the data is out of date). That bid had non-school-site nodal points, and lost to the CSED bid, with its one, simple, school-site nodal point. IMO, the DfE clearly was rejecting an artificial move of the catchment into affluent areas already better served by quality schools (Village with 74% going to CSRPH, ED with only three schools taking nearly 60% of their children), and away from people in greater need.