Haberdashers' East Dulwich - 751 families supporting

[bornagain]

News hot off the press!

http://www.charter.southwark.sch.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=6&storyid=168

Is Charter the preferred bidder? Or is this another one in the works?

[Vik]

Was just coming to post that bornagain!

I think this is great news, I have 2 children in Charter, My oldest (now nearly 16) being the last to have ever been offered a place there on our road (not including sibling policy.) I have a large gap between my older and younger ones so the sibling policy won't count for us when we next reach secondary transfer time again and there is no chance we will get Charter this time round, so the possibilty of them opening another school in ED is really brilliant news, I really can't fault Charter as a school.

[James Barber]

No, its not The Charter School.

We did a scoring exercise with between The Charter School and the provider we unanimously chose to go with - they'll be announced later today. TCS scored significantly less points than the provider we've chosen.

This is really unfortunate and can inly distract Charter coming into an Ofsted visit.

This appears a spoiling exercise. Until this campaign was ignited Charter hadn't been thinking of this. Creating another Charter is a great idea. Just not on the doorstep of the existing one!

[James Barber]

Hi Vik,

But having another Charter won't give people more choice but more quantity. They also didn't come out as well when we compared them to another provider. They don't have experience of the free school process. They originally thought they could bang out an application in a few weeks.

So we took advice from the Free School Network.

It's all rather sad. This isn't a strategy for the school but a reaction to not being chosen to provide our school.

[bornagain]

Hi James,

'It's all rather sad. This isn't a strategy for the school but a reaction to not being chosen to provide our school.'

Your comments in the previous two posts sound very political and off-putting. It may be bad news for your little project but for those parents who supported you with your quest for new school(s) surely this is very good news? Provision of new schools for this area is not an ego trip, we need to consider the overall outcome for the community. Whatever you say, Charter is a respected and much admired local school and you come across as a very sour and sore loser with your comments.

ETA the change of the post thread title is noted. I for one would prefer Charter to Askes.

ETA2 'New Haberdashers Aske's East Dulwich College 472 families supporting' - this is typical politico tactics. The new title is v. misleading. If you remember you coyly refused to divulge who the bidders were inspite of many requests. So those 472 families were supporting a new coed, non-religious etc comprehensive not Askes per se. In fact many may prefer Charter. AFAIK Askes are actually single sex as the teaching is all done in single sex classes.

[James Barber]

Hi bornagain,

I'm sorry this came across in this way.

A lot of time has been spent meeting with the Charter School, Haberdashers' Aske's and other school providers.

The final decision was a scoring exercise to compare those first two and their ability to provide a new secondary free school in East Dulwich opening 2016. Habderdasher's came a very clear first. I had hoped Charter would accept this gracefully.

Part of the risk of The Charter School applying for a new school is the Department for Education saying why not dramatically expand your current school. Go up rather than adding another site. I'm really not sure existing Charter school parents would want this risk.

Equally The Charter School last had an Ofsted inspection five years ago. So they are due another one. These are major undertakings. Hatcham College has just had one. All these factors and more were taken into account when we decided to go with Haberdashers' Aske's.

[bornagain]

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.

[Bumpkin]

Thanks James, I'm very grateful for all the effort that you and the steering committee have put into this, as a parent of a 6 yr old, this significantly reduces future stress and worry about secondary school places.

[grabot]

Thanks James and all concerned. We greatly appreciate your efforts.

[James Barber]

Hi Bumpkin, grabot,

Many thanks. Do encourage family and friends to sign-up their support via www.newschool.org.uk

hi born-again,

No and yes. No, schools have choices to make how they spend their valuable time, energy and cash. The Charter School appears to have decided it wants to avoid extra competition and put its resources into fighting to do open one themselves. Not a positive strategy. I would have hoped those resources and energy would be put into improving their school further. But yes free school process do make this a possibility.

[Derek_Hill]

James,

It is great that the lib dems are supportive of a new school for East Dulwich. The Charter School Eductational Trust sees its offering as a natural extension of the original foundation of Charter school to meet the needs of the local community - far too few of whom are able to get places at Charter. I realize that you prefer another option: the impression you gave our governing body was that you didn't really engage with our offering in serious way until very late in your process. Many others in the local community have given us strong support for bidding and we felt we owed it to them to take forward our vision independently of your initiative. We have great pro-bono support from PWC and others to help us assemble a strong bid for the local community.

Derek Hill

(Governor of Charter School - but speaking in a personal capacity)

[James Barber]

Hi Derek,

I'm really sorry you feel this.

Myself and other met with Charter School people a number of times. We've spent many many hours seriously considering your proposals to us. A number of our Steering Group had been very pro working with The Charter School which drove what we felt our thorough assessment of your capabilities and strong desire to be chosen.

But as I've said after a thorough scoring exercise based on your written responses to the questions and criteria we shared with you fully we decided to go with a different provider who scored noticeable more.

Our new East Dulwich secondary school being provided by Haberdashers' can only extend choice and for the many who wish to have Charter education it is likely that the catchment area will rise as those that wish for a Haberdashers' education go there. It should be a win win for parents with more choice from more great schools.

[Derek_Hill]

James,

There is a formal process for a new free school to be selected - and it is run by the DfE, not by local councillors.

Derek Hill

Governor of Charter School (speaking in a personal capacti)

[bawdy-nan]

er, yuk

[Scruffy Mummy]

I'm not on the steering committee so I don't know anything about the decision and what went on at all!

But I do know that many parents who were supporting a school on this forum also did not want the admissions criteria to be on distance only. Clearly Charter School is very committed to a distance only policy - which has made that school very restricted in terms of access. Many people buy or rent near Charter to get in but many people simply can't afford to do this. Many, many people on this forum did not want to replicate the restricted admissions policy of Charter but rather wanted a school which would use other criteria in addition to distance. My understanding of Haberdashers they is that they use banding as well as distance. Banding will widen the scope of the admissions to the school.

And personally, I feel Haberdashers has a track record in setting up and running different schools - East Dulwich school needs to be up by 2016 and would need a provider that has experience doing this. I know how difficult managing capital projects is from my work - and believe you me, it can be very messy and expensive if you don't get it right! I urge Charter to hire a sound capital projects manager to manage the new school build if they go ahead. And for that matter Haberdashers too! (seen too many things go wrong in the charity sector when people without capital building project management experience try to mange it themselves!)

Well done to the steering committee for getting this off the ground! If Charter thinks it can open another secondary school, fair play to them - I don't think there is a shortage of students based on the population figures.

[Belle]

As James said, he and members of the Steering Group have not undertaken this process lightly, and significant consideration was given to the Charter's proposition. There is no doubt it is an excellent local school which we are lucky to have in our area. Crucially though, we are under a time constraint: to avoid a shortfall of secondary places in 2016 we need a provider who can act quickly and assuredly, and who knows the free school process. Haberdashers' Aske's can do that, having already set up a free school. This is a process they know, and excel at.

[Otta]

As an old Askean I think this is good news.

[James Barber]

Hi Scruffy Mummy,

Haberdashers' have a such a project management team coming to the end of building a new free primary school and rebuilding another junior school. They've also rebuilt Crayford relatively recently. So the successful project team would move onto our new secondary school project.

[Derek_Hill]

Scruffy mum,

The admissions policy of a new school run by the Charter School Education Trust doesn't have to be the same as the current Charter School. There are very strict guidelines about the types of admission criteria that can be used - so the options are limited, but and as part of our community consultation, we'd welcome input from the community about what admission criteria should be put in place.

Derek Hill

Governor of Charter School

[Derek_Hill]

James, Belle,

The Charter School Education Trust has assembled a team to help with the bid. This includes people involved in setting up Charter School in the first place, and we have extremely valuable pro-bono support offered by PWC in preparing the bid.

Derek Hill

Governor of Charter School

[intexasatthe moment]

I thought that there was a strong preference expressed on this thread for a local school that children could walk to from their homes ?

Travel to such far flung places as Peckham was deemed excessive .

Surely that was a vote for a distance based admissions policy ?

[Scruffy Mummy]

I think the vote was for a combo of distance & another criteria actually - reading the thread you can see that people weren't happy with distance only. And no one said Peckham was far flung - simply that there weren't going to be enough spaces at either Peckham Academy Peckham (particularly now they have their very own feeder primary school) or at Harris Boys Peckham.

Well, good luck to both new schools schools! I believe that with the expanding numbers of children in South London, it won't be a problem filling the schools frankly. Herne Hill & Brixton has a growing young family population as does Peckham & East Dulwich - and all those areas lie on the 37 bus route so very accessible! And perhaps the new schools will also cream off some of those people who might have gone private - as opposed to the private schools in our area creaming off the state school students - who knows???

[mrs.lotte]

Derek,

Does it follow that you would consider one admission criteria for the original site and a different one for a new site (around the corner)? And conversely would you change the admission criteria for the original site?

[intexasatthe moment]

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 ?

[bornagain]

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 ?