Harris Academy (new boys school for East Dulwich)

[AllforNun]

What the posting 'explains' as you put it and what the underlying message actually is are two completely separate things. The use of the term 'Decreed' betrays the fact that someone feels like they are being dictated to and therefore sets a negative tone for the rest of the posting.

If it was about design you would say something about getting the design right for this wonderful new school that is going to provide a new centre of learning in the heart of our vibrant community, as I am sure you will agree.

[Jimmy Mac]

Well at least you seem to have thought a little more than you apparently did before your last two posts.

I joined the discussion as I find it irritating when someone posts something detailed and on topic, and receives a snide one-liner in reply.

You have not justified your comment :-

"" But at a design meeting, fight clever and fight on design, not the rest of the issues."

That reeks if self interest.......nice"

Katgod set out what are apparently "givens" then went on to explain that the meeting was about design.

"Decreed" does not betray any fact.

As for "If it was about design you would say..." - no, I would have said something like what katgod said in katgod's third paragraph.

[Emily]

'Fight clever' clearly means, if you are opposed to this school in its proposed incarnation, it is a waste of time discussing pupil numbers at a design meeting.

[AllforNun]

You are using design as a reason to try and get this School stopped. You are just running around in circles with your arguments so lets just agree to disagree.

As for "I find the idea of a school run by some uneducated bloke who ran some nasty carpet shops utterly unacceptable anyway" it's ridiculuous. The man was born and raised in the Borough and actually attended Streatham Grammar School. He left at the age of 15 after the premature death of his Father and took over the running of 3 small local carpet shops, he is now worth something in the region of 260 million.

As for sunshine house being 'afflicted' it has a great range of facilities and the building improves services for children with special needs, disabilities and other vulnerabilities.

[KalamityKel]

Something to look up to. Well put A4N :))

[*Bob*]

AllforNun Wrote:

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He

> left at the age of 15 after the premature death of

> his Father and took over the running of 3 small

> local carpet shops, he is now worth something in

> the region of 260 million.

You're right.. he certainly seems to have all the credentials one looks for RE the building of a new school.

[AllforNun]

Well in sense that he pulled himself up , yes, and the fact that he is from the borough. People like this are role models that the youth of today need, he may be white but there are an awfull lot of people from other backrounds from this borough who are equally as inspiring, they may not be worth 260 million and may not have the title of lord, but they have certainly have worked hard and taken what on the surface seems to be the harder route to better their and their families lives.

obviously we need inspiring teachers to make the school a success, no doubt about it.

.

[AllforNun]

.

[*Bob*]

AFN,

I'm willing to concede that some people will be opposed to this school no matter what, if you're willing to concede that Lord Harris is a primarily a businessman whose plans to build schools ought to be scrutinised instead of blindly accepted.

The initial Harris plan - based-upon cramming as many pupils as possible into a cheap and unfit-for-purpose building - has now been rejected under such scrutiny. I don't deny that there will be elements of both objection on-principal and NIMBYism amongst the scrutineers, but I think the result is the right one, whatever the motives.

As to where it goes from here.. we shall see.

[AllforNun]

...Why would he be wanting to Cram pupils into one school ?

I think all proposals should be scrutinised not just the one's that could win more vote's for one particular political party.

On the otherside of the rye is a lovely new set of flats with an underground car park and a glass penthouse. But go and stand in one on the gardens of the victorian terraces that back onto this thing and tell me how that got approved ? Or the fact that the Labour councillors had to fight tooth and nail in Nunhead to get Nunhead Green designated as a conservation area, despite opposition from the Southwark Executive who saw it as a great place to build lot's of cheap housing away from ED ?

[AllforNun]

There are only 750 fulltime places in the school with the other 200 coming in the form of 6th formers. And it looks like the 6th form will be shared between the 2 sites. Anyone who has attended the 6th form will know that it operates slightly outside of the main school timetable.

The school will not be up to full capacity until 2015 anyway, plenty of time for them to discover they have made a miscalculation, if that is indeed the case.

Maybe they will build a seperate 6th form block, possibly on the Foxtons site then everybody will be happy !!!!!

[Emily]

And I'm glad to see you agree with me that 'Lord' Harris (don't you hate the kind of arrogant people who insist on their poxy titles?) is uneducated. Sure, he's hugely successful at selling nasty carpets, but do you honestly think that is the best qualification for running schools? I don't.

[AllforNun]

Who says they are nasty carpets a bet a lot of people think that some of the ranges are very nice. And no I do not agree with you that he is uneducated and yes I do think that he can organise people to set up schools. His track record is there for all too see. And having seen what some of the academies are like I am not sure it will be at all bleak and depressing. I think being educated in porta cabins alongside a leaky old victorian school house is, which is exactly what was going on at that site for several years.

As for sunshine house well obviously that is not good news, The liberals thought that the design for the academy was rubbish yet they seem to think sunshine house is amazing.

Councillor Caroline Pidgeon, Southwark Council?s liberal Executive Member for Children?s Services and Education, said, ?Sunshine House is a fantastic new building and gleaming example of what we are doing in Southwark - putting children and young people at the heart of all our services and modernising them in a way that makes them more responsive to the needs of

those who use them and better equipped to meet those needs."

Maybe they need to take some educational lessons from someone who knows about good design ? Lord foster perhaps ?....oh no there's that lord thing again !

[newgirl]

I don't understand why I was unaware of these recent meetings...

I attended the meeting last year (in late summer I think) at the Girls' school, put my name down on EDGE's list, wrote to Tessa Jowell and wrote a letter to the planning committee spelling out my concerns about the plans.

What do you have to do to find out/get invited to these meetings???

[AllforNun]

wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang, wanna be in my gang oh yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhh !!!

[BigDad]

When I said that the Council & Harris had 'messed up', I meant that they had missed a great opportunity to get a good school opened by when it was committed to be open. By not consulting with local parents, residents and groups in the area, they put forward a design which was (in my view) like a prison for too many students on too small a site.

As for the architects being sacked ... well as far as I'm aware they are still on the job. They have consulted with local residents and are apparently starting from a clean slate. Do I have confidence in them and Harris? - well, no, I don't. I have spoken to Dan Moynihan at a council meeting, (he is a Harris Head Teacher and the person responsible in Harris for the new school) but he does not fill me with any confidence in terms of them actually being interested in the local community. He was not clear on how the school would work in terms of transferring children between the two sites all day every day, nor on how the 'sports' aspect would work in real life. His view was that it was more on sports coaching than sports itself, though this is not explained anywhere in their literature.

We know they have the minimum number of parents involved as school governors - i.e. one (though interestingly at least 2 of the Lib Dem councilors are on the board, one of whom we asked to provide info to us last summer which he promised he would .... but then never did), they have not consulted with us about how the school will be run, what will be involved, how it will work (I don't count the architects consultations for reasons stated earlier), or why this is apparently the only option available.

And I thought it was supposed to be a school for the community??????

As for the Council - they are keeping quiet too and are not engaging with us. Why is this? My thoughts are that political reputations are at stake - they said they would have a school, so they will put one in at any cost, even though the local parents/residents are incredibly concerned about the size and scale of the project, and the impact it will have on the capability and potential future success of the school.

Consultation? - Do me a favour!

[AllforNun]

Oooh Parent governers ! have they all done courses now in how to project manage schools. Have you experienced prison life ?

[KalamityKel]

Are you suggesting parent governors are thick? :-|

[zephyr]

Emily Wrote:

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> And I'm glad to see you agree with me that 'Lord'

> Harris (don't you hate the kind of arrogant people

> who insist on their poxy titles?) is uneducated.

> Sure, he's hugely successful at selling nasty

> carpets, but do you honestly think that is the

> best qualification for running schools? I don't.

There is something very ironic about what you have said. You said in an earlier post that you have a child with special needs - technically Lord Harris would possibly have been a visitor to Sunshine house had it been around in his day and we would have been classed as having special needs (it is well known that he is dyslexic).

He is a life peer - if I had been given a peerage I would use it, no pont in accepting it otherwise.

He has given a very large amount of money to education and been involved with many schools (not just the ones in South East London). He probably qualifies more than most to build or rebuild a school.

[AllforNun]

Well i am not sure that if you have no experience in project managing a school you are thick, that is quite a leap is it not?

Probably similar in the theoretical leap that being a parent governor qualifies you to have an expert opinion on building a new school?

[*Bob*]

AFN

The parent governors are more for when the school is up and running, not for providing expert opinion on the building of it.

Schools that do best are often ones which function with the support of parents. One way of encouraging such support is to offer the parents decent representation within the school. Declaring that you're only prepared to fulfil the basic requirements of governor representation sends-out all the wrong signals from the off.

[AllforNun]

Yes well aware of that fact.

But how can you have parent governers in place when you do not yet have any pupils ?

The fact that most of you are on here blogging about what a blight on SE22 this school is probably the reason why they don't really want a mass of you involved in breaking their balls at every stage of the development.

It is interesting that the Harris Girls Academy on the other side of the park certainly did not get the kind of reaction from local residents as this Boys Academy, but then again it's the other side of the park and hidden behind some trees so you are not all going to have nightmares about it.

I think the only wrong signals being sent out are from some local residents.

[*Bob*]

I think you're reading too much into my posting there, AFN.

You say governors are useless. I say they aren't. That's all.

[*Bob*]

Incidentally, I think it ought to be possible for a reasoning and reasonable person to accept that whilst some people *may* be opposed to the school no matter what and are prepared to use any tool available to oppose it, it doesn't necessarily follow that the design for the school is a good one, or that having just the bare minimum number of governors is a great idea etc etc.

But I appreciate that online debates like these are mostly about ever-increasingly polarised opinions rather than common sense.

[AllforNun]

Speak for yourself regarding common sense.

As for "You say governors are useless" i never said that at all and do not think that either.

And yes the first design was not a good one but it is all part of the process and moving forward. It took the Lib Dems years to except this School was going to happen and when they finally ran out of political moves they had no choice but to join in.