Haberdashers' East Dulwich - 751 families supporting

[mariababe]

Habs currently use banding (then distance)..all Lewisham schools follow this admissions policy

If anyone needs proof then go into the Lewisham councils web site and follow links to schools...its all there

[intexasatthe moment]

I found a description of their admissions/oversubscrition policy on a 2008 Funding Agreement which I guess might be current policy .

My reading is that they have 9 bands and they divide up each years intake ( as opposed to referencing to national scores )

and try and fill each band with equal numbers . Assume they give preference to proximity within those bands .

Can anyone post a link to a current doc explaining policy ?

Will they use same policy if they go ahead with new school ?

[redmonkey]

Hello. Can someone explain the fact that although the local council say they've chosen Habs as the provider, Charter were flyering outside Bessemer this morning, advertising their bid? Are they also still hoping to build on the hospital site or what?

[Cora]

A campaign was set up before Christmas to open a new secondary school on the east dulwich hospital site. A steering group of interested parents approached different providers including Charter but decided that the haberdasher Askes proposal was the best and decided to go ahead with them in their proposal. Charter have since decided that they will also bid to open the school and are canvassing for support. The mix up is that originally there was only one proposal which was supported cross party, now there are suddenly two competing proposals. The final decision will be made in June I think.

[redmonkey]

In that case will there be some sort of meeting in which they set out there cases to local people and we can ask questions?

Its quite hard to decide what would be best by just reading a leaflet. Could James Barber organise this?

My children are a long way from secondary school still. Do we get a say or is it just the parents of older children?

[redjam]

Ultimately it's not our decision, redmonkey. It's the DfE who gets to hear both bids and choose.

[redmonkey]

Fair enough. That's democracy I suppose. Ish. I'll abandon this thread and get back to thinking about things I can control.

[James Barber]

Hi redmonkey,

I initiated a campaign for a new secondary school publicly 5 December 2013.

When it reached sufficient sufficient from parents to justify a free school application I asked the first 20 parents interested in helping to form a Parent Steering Group to make the decision which provider to go with. Sadly The Charter School took the news badly that they weren't chosen. We ran a thorough process to review strengths and weaknesses and they lost.

Parents will need to choose which campaign they wish to support.

More of the same from The charter School or a adding a new choice in the form of Haberdashers' Aske's.

If both bids are sumbitted then the Department for Education will decide which they prefer.

The only feasible for a new secondary school site in the area is the Dulwich Hospital site (roughtly 2/3rds). I submitted a Right to Contest to obtain that 2/3rds. We await the outcome of that Right to Contest. I was clear in that applciation that the land was beign requested for the new secondary campaign we East Dulwich wards councillors initiated and led.

What's particularly sad is The Charter School have been asked by the council if they would consider opening another secondary school in the north of the borough. They've said no. They're spending money of what appears professional canvassers lobbying outside schools. Existing Charter School parents may question whether such a diversion of resources away from teaching their children is the best possible use of resources.

[redmonkey]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this James. And thanks for initiating the whole campaign. I'm sorry I wasn't really aware of it until a few days ago.

You sound quite annoyed with Charter.

Do I need to choose a campaign to support? Redjam said it was up to the DfE. Will voices from the community make a difference now?

Also, have you published your reasons for choosing Habadasher's over Charter? I saw a post in which you said you'd put the reasons in the first post in this thread but I couldn't find them.

[Stateeducation]

James Barber...you sound very angry and aggressive in your last post.

You also seem to be misleading people. Yes the steering group choose HA but why should Charter, or anyone else, accept that. The steering group have behaved like it is their sole decision to make, it is not.

The new school will be chosen by the DfE and not you Mr Barber.

[Vik]

Would you mind clarifying a few points from your last post James?

"Parents will need to choose which campaign they wish to support." I was under the impression that the DfE will be making the desision, no matter who supports it?

"More of the same from The charter School" More of the same great local school? Why do you make this sound like a bad thing?

"What's particularly sad is The Charter School have been asked by the council if they would consider opening another secondary school in the north of the borough." When were they asked? What site? Were Haberdashers asked?

"They're spending money of what appears professional canvassers lobbying outside schools." Do you know for a fact it was a proffesional canvasser not a representative of Charter?

"Existing Charter School parents may question whether such a diversion of resources away from teaching their children is the best possible use of resources." Thank you for your concern but as an existing Charter parent I'm sure that my childrens education is not being compromised, perhaps you could make sure Haberdashers are not diverting resources away from teaching their chidren while working on their campaign.

[samstopit]

Red monkey, if you go to James Barber's very first post from 4th Dec there is a Q&Q document attached there. I was able to open it.

[redmonkey]

Thanks, I missed that.

[James Barber]

Hi Vik,

Apolgies for my bad hair day.

The DfE may be influenced to some degree by the qunatity of support for a bid when two bids are compared.

Yes more of the The Charter woudl provide more capacity to the area but zero extra choice.

We did check with Haberdashers' about how they would resource a bid. That was part of the criteria we used. Beign a federation of five schools and part of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers' who also run other educational charities oeprating independant schools. But they were clear they wouldnt start working on their bid in detail until after the May exam period.

The Worshipful company are clear they insist all children in their schools whether independet (privatE) or state should have the sames great opportunities.

[sillywoman]

I have heard that the banding system the current Haberdasher school uses creams off the top 10% of pupils in each band - thereby getting themselves the brightest and best pupils from the applying population. Is this really the case? If it is the case is this the criteria that would be applied for the new school? If so I can see why The Charter is not keen to have them on their doorstep competing for the same pupil intakes. It would be such a shame if the success of The Charter (truly comprehensive, and locally based intake) was ruined by this type of sneaky backdoor machinations.

[Scruffy Mummy]

No I don't believe that is true.

[mariababe]

I'm sorry sillywoman but that doesn't make any sense (plus I hate the term "I have heard")

Anyway if they are creaming the top 10% from band 9 (lowest scores) how does that mean they are taking the highest abled child??

No sense at all and definitely not sneaky

[mariababe]

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/education/schools/school-admission/applying-to-start-secondary-school/Documents/SecondarySchools201415.pdf

Hope this works - this booklet explains by school (from page 31) how many places by band are offered and the distance for the last offer, it also shows how many applicants per banding.

[bornagain]

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.

[intexasatthe moment]

If you deduct the nos of pupils transferring from the primary school the band sizes become more equal .

[sophiesofa]

Sorry if I'm being dense here (or just missed it in the many pages!) but how do I officially support Charter? I didn't realise that it's not too late to support them.

I have experience with the federation machine and charter (in differing amounts) and do wish to support Charter.

I'm a bit concerned by James barber's obvious annoyance at Charter - doesn't seem appropriate or constructive to me.

[sophiesofa]

I admit that I have not fully read the q&a documents but I would question some of the criteria. Yes it may be useful to go with a provider that has gone through the free school process before but surely not as important as the long term of having the 'best' school. Knights has a very different intake but you can't ignore it's recent requires improvement rating. Surely progress trumps having been through free school applications!

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Sophia , I have posted a thread regarding Charter. You can add your support via the contact details on there .

I personally would liked to have had a choice in which school I feel would be better for ED, fair enough there is the steering group but I think all of the ED parents should have had a voice too .

We are taken over by Harris and then are told to support Haberdasher . It seems to be a case of 'Accept Harris/Haberdasher or go without ' where is the choice ?

[Stateeducation]

The issue that this has developed into is a mistaken belief that James Barber and the steering group feel they have chosen the HA free school for the whole of East Dulwich and now we should just accept it.

This is not true. The steering group are not representative.

It is also true that Mr Barber is increasingly showing signs of anger and annoyance at a Charter bid. Surely if he is interested in the best school for ED then he should equally support both? Siding with one bid becomes political while at the same time publicly criticising Charter (an outstanding school) does not help anyone. Surely as an elected councillor he should not be publicly attacking the Charter bid?

[bornagain]

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?