Why I support the East Dulwich academy proposal
On Sunday, I attended a public meeting called by those who are campaigning against the new planned boys Academy in East Dulwich.
Those who are against the school who spoke broadly fall into four categories; those who are against academies on principle; those who like the old Victorian building on the chosen site and want it retained; those who believe the school could be improved on particular educational grounds (it’s too big, it should be a mixed school etc); and those who are simply concerned about a development in their back yard.
It was the first group that was dominant. Speaker after speaker (many from outside the area and many from the NUT) condemned academies. Yet none of the Labour councillors or party members present felt moved to defend the what is after all their policy.
And of course the anti-academy contingent all attacked the Lib Dem-led Southwark council and me for foisting this policy on them!
The part of the academies agenda that I find most frustrating is that it is largely about creating a contract between the government and the academy provider. The Council is a player but it lacks the degree of control that many people expect it to have. I agreed with a number of comments made around democratic legitimacy and need for the councillors, local parents and people to have an input.
So, I find myself in an interesting position. Neither I nor the Liberal Democrats share the government’s enthusiasm for academies. But as a local council we have to decide. Do we fight a political campaign against academies - retaining our ideological purity but risking the education of hundreds of children? Or do we compromise and do our best to deliver a new school within the framework set by the Government?
For my money, the need for decent, local, free secondary education for boys is one of the biggest social needs in East Dulwich. Parents have campaigned for a school for over six or seven years. I am not willing to sacrifice the education of hundreds of boys for a political campaign to change government policy. That debate and that campaign should be waged at the next general election. I dare say a vote for my party will be the most effective vote against that policy! But in the meantime, we as local councilors need to work for the best outcome we can achieve within the constraints set for us. And that is why I remain a firm supporter of the East Dulwich academy.
Tim Leunig said,
November 25, 2007 @ 12:42 am
Well said.
Peter John said,
November 26, 2007 @ 10:52 am
This is a sensible and the right position Richard. There is a real need for a new school for East Dulwich, and with the commitment of local parents I am sure that it will be a success.
I do have concerns about the lack of local democratic accountability within the Academies programme, but we do know from experience in Southwark and across England and Wales, that sometimes local authority involvement does not serve our schools as it should. I hope that with time City Academies will find their place within our education structure and that there will be greater community involvement.
On a positive note, in Southwark we do know that City Academies have improved the educational results of many children, and they do seem to be popular with parents and children alike. It is important that the East Dulwich Academy for boys continues to attract popular local support and is delivered sooner rather than later.
Tim Weller said,
December 4, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
I agree that there is the need for a boys school in the area.
The important issue is in ensuring that it is the right boys school, and that it is built on an appropriate site.
I cannot see how building such a large school on such a small site will provide our boys with the education that they deserve, and whilst it might be architecturally “possible” that doesn’t make it sensible.
My view is that if this is the only site available then we need to discuss options for making the proposed school smaller, possibly by linking it more closely with the girls school so that the sixth form could be entirely located there… If the two sites could be integrated there are many options that could be looked at to make a very useful new school. If none of these options are available (though I can’t see why) and it is decided that the area really needs a boys school that size (950 pupils) then this is not the right site to build it on.
It strikes me that this decision must be made purely on the criteria of educational quality and local area appropriateness, and I rather fear that at the moment the schools size is being determined by economic factors of profitability which are not a sound or relevant basis for making a decision about our children’s education and quality of life.
This is the are that needs to be discussed before a decision is reached, and all parties need to ensure that they are discussed.
Howard said,
January 23, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
There are those in favour of a School , possibly even an Academy because they have a son they would like to send there. They live near the site and simpy want to make sure the development is as sympathetic to the area and something we can take pride in living opposite. Harris’s initial proposals were awful, something like a Holiday Inn, They have consulted by having meetings with residents and appeared to listen. I hope when they do reveal their new plans the building is something we can be proud of.
Even if the building opens as a Harris Academdy there is nothing to stop Government changing policy in the future and it being a community school. I say get the plans right and get it built. We can argue about who runs it and how
while it is being built and even after its been open a few years.
Duncan said,
January 23, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
Richard has commented at two separate meetings that we cannot avoid delaying the school because of the effect this will have on a year of local children not having a local school. This is such a short term view! It does not take responsibility that the proposed plan is for 950 boys on a very small site, and that each and every single year 150 boys would be condemned to be taught in an over-crowded building.
The main complaint is the size of the school on the site available and that local parents and residents have not been consulted with. Hopefully the architects can design a good building, and not the prison that they came up with last time (which was slated by all and sundry).
And as for Harris - well, they do like keeping things close to their chests, they exclude parents from being governors and do not want to meet to discuss the issues. If they are serious about providing a good education, are they prepared to take the tough decision and look at the two sites available (the girls school) and see what is best for the community - what would provide the best service to all? Or are they just going to bull doze through their plan.
Come on Richard - you know what has been said at the meetings - are you prepared to fight for a decent school - one that will fit on the site? Will you put your boys into that school - overcrowded and run by an organisation which keeps parents at arms length?
John Lacey said,
January 24, 2008 @ 10:06 am
The proposals that were made for the site last year were quite simply the worst designs I have seen for an academy building. The proposals failed to properly address the basic issues of the massing of the building, position on the site, access, orientation, proximity to existing buildings, scale, internal space planning and materials. Further to these points, there was a very unconvincing and unsubstantiated argument for demolishing the existing Victorian building, with not even a consideration of how it could be incorporated into a contemporary new school building. A site as important as this should really deserve more thought on it’s future as an exemplar school and a more deserving design.
Richard Thomas said,
January 25, 2008 @ 11:44 am
John, Duncan,
Harris will be bringing forward new plans which I hope expect will be a huge improvement on the previous plans. They are certainly not beyond criticism but I think they are now communicating rather better than they have been. I dare say they could improve further and it will be in their interests to strive to do so.
The issue of size is interesting. Like most parents, I have been pre-programmed to believe that small is beautiful. What I have not seen is any evidence put forward by those who claim the school will be cramped or too small to support their claim. Would the DfES would not have approved a school if they thought it was too crowded to be viable? I have spoken to Harris about this very issue and they say the densities are comparable with their school at Crystal Palace. 950 may sound big but I am told it is around the average size for a secondary school.
I am reluctant to make my kids’ education a political issue. When I decide where to send mine I’ll discuss it with them and their mother before I blog my thoughts!. What I do know is that many parents only have any choice in this if they can send their kids privately or out of the area. Many more exercise their choice by moving away. A new school remains the major social need for our community.
Brenda Tubbs said,
January 27, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
I agree with the need to have more school places in the area, but the current proposals are not ones that local people, both with and without children, will support. Most people would prefer a mixed school and everyone I spoke to whilst leafletting last Summer thought that trying to build a school for 950 boys on such a small site would be a disaster. Nobody could see how a school designated as a Sports Academy could possibly fulfill that function on a site which cannot accommodate decent sports facilities.
Those living near the school are worried about the creation of an overcrowded and unattractive institution in their backyard. Those with children wanted somewhere that they would be confident of their children getting a good education - and this did not seem to be it.
The grudging way in which Harris have approached consultation with the local community did not inspire confidence that they would listen to us, either now or in future.
Rethink these plans before you create a sink school which will blight the area - and damage the prospects of re-election for the councillors who have promoted it !!!
Catherine said,
January 29, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
Retaining ideological purity, as you put it, will not put our kids’ education at risk. If you have an anti-academy position, then have the courage of your convictions and come out with it. If not, then be honest, put the flannel away, quit the criticism of those who are exercising a democratic right to have a say, and stop pretending your aim is to keep everyone on board. You are not Mr Nice Guy.
Richard Thomas said,
January 29, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
Catherine
Of course not having a local school for boys adversley effects our kid’s education!
I can’t be accused of flannel because my position is clear. I am backing the school. Frankly, it would be easier to keep my mouth shut (as I notice Labour councillors are doing..).
I am not criticising anyone for expressing their opinion - but I am taking issue with some of the arguments.
Duncan said,
January 29, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
Richard
The trend these days is to go for smaller schools - one large school in South London of 2,000 children was split into 4 separate units and there is a growing movement to have smaller schools because of the benefits.
With regards to Harris communicating better than they have in the past is stretching it. To date we have only had consultation with the architects, who are a company contracted to do a job and do not have any say in what the numbers will be nor in the manner that it will be run.
Dan Moynihan and Harris will not meet with local residents and parents and neither will Caroline Pidgeon and Southwark Council. We asked last night for a joint community council group across the districts that surround the school yet this was turned down by the board. Why? Why can the community not count on its local councilors to get together as a non-political cross party working group to get to the bottom of this which is an important issue and is raising a lot of concern in the area.
We need to see confirmation of the numbers. Originally Harris said it was due to economics, but when the pressure was turned up it became a Council decision.
Yet I submitted a FOI request to the council and received no such confirmation of any such decision having been made. Your colleague Cllr Jonathon Mitchell promised that he would find out where the number came from last summer but has never come back with an answer.
What is Harris’s plan to manage 950 active boys, where will the sports take place (its a sports academy after all), how will students be moved between the sites, how often will Peckham Rye be used? These and other questions have never been answered and by having a joint community action group it will give the community a voice and a platform to be heard.
I look forward to your response!
Tim Weller said,
January 31, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Richard, referring to the Dfes figures you quote, it is recommended that a 3 form entry school (450 pupils) has a site of 1.95 acres. This site is 1.85 acres, and a school of 950 pupils is being proposed. Although the Dfes acknowledges that in some inner city cases this might not be possible, it is obvious that this is a long way from their recommended ideal. Actually, further than 50% from it. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is a significant difference.
Most things are “possible” but that doesn’t by definition make them the best solution, and this is the issue here. By merely accepting the proposal on the basis that it wouldn’t have been proposed “if it wasn’t viable” you are turning a blind eye to the many other options that are available here and some of these compromises should be discussed.
You are right that this is not an issue about academies in principal. Like it or lump it, that is the framework that this government has laid down, and that is the one we need to work with. However within that framework there has to be room for the community to consult properly with the sponsors and our elected council about all of the relevant issues to do with this proposed school, and that must include its size in relation to its site. This has not yet happened, despite claims to the contrary. If we can’t discuss this, how can anyone claim that there is local support? Please don’t confuse support for a school with support for this school, as they are not necessarily the same thing. Remember, if you build the wrong school people will still move out of the area to get their children into the right school.
You are also right that “the need for decent, local, free secondary education for boys is one of the biggest social needs in East Dulwich. Parents have campaigned for a school for over six or seven years”. I myself want a school for my son, but I want it to be a good school, not a cramped inner city one. If I’d wanted that, I’d live in the cramped inner city! Does it not strike you as odd that some of the people who campaigned for a school are also campaigning against this proposal? Rather than dismissing them as nimbys or anti-academists, can’t you acknowledge that maybe this is not the school that they want and open the channels of dialogue and consultation sufficiently to enable this to be discussed?
You seem, from your above comments, to be backing the school for the reason that any school is better than no school. I would disagree with this. The last school that was built on that site is still (just about) there, and served this community for over a hundred years, and this new one will need to do the same. This is an important, long term decision and, lets face it, an expensive one. From what I’ve heard this will cost c£25 million, and with the sponsor providing £2 million of that, this will leave us taxpayers with a very hefty bill. With this in mind surely it is crucial to get it right and build something that people want?
This isn’t a party political issue either, I have no interest in whether your labour colleagues have been silent on this or not, or whether your party supports the academy programme. I voted for you because at the last election you persuaded me that you were sufficiently qualified to represent the interests of the local community, and that is what I want you to do now. To unquestioningly run along with the status quo because no one has persuaded you to do otherwise is not satisfactory. Instead you need to look for the ideal solution and get as close to it as you can, and to do this you need to engage people in a proper sensible discussion about all the aspects of this school. That’s what I elected you to do, and I shan’t be voting for you again if you don’t.
You mention that for your own children you’ll discuss their educational needs with them and their mother before blogging, maybe you should do this, and then decide if this proposed school is one that you’d want to send them to? If it isn’t, how can you help further the discussion, dialogue and compromise so that it becomes a school that you (and I) would want to use?
Tim
Adam Glasser said,
January 31, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Richard I appreciate very much the contribution that you personally have made to the community. And the positions that you have taken on many issues I am in agree with but I ask you and the Lib Dems to show more flexibility and return to a close consideration of the details on the issue of the school design and its size from which all else flows. This is not a question of being pro or anti academy. We have one chance to get the school right and this is it.
May I also say that this is not a party issue either. Tessa Jowell and Labour Councillors did much to help the school campaign along with Lib Dems Caroline Pidgeon who with Nick Stanton worked exhaustively to find sites for a temporary school over the past few years before the ill fated Harris Planning application was withdrawn due to local opposition and criticism from the Southwark Design Review Panel that it had ‘no architectural merit whatsoever’.
To be fair to the Harris team, they produced the design under enormous pressure to get through planning so that the temporary school could open as soon as possible. And much of that pressure came from local parents (such as me) who were involved in many meetings as part of EDEN.
* * *
In December 07 the notion that Harris were willing to ’start from scratch’ was a welcome idea although the form the consultation took - meetings by appointment, behind closed doors, limited group numbers, some subjects off limits - was completely at odds with the local culture of parent participation and open meetings.
But the issue of size will not go away.
Richard writes:
>”What I have not seen is any evidence put forward by those who >claim the school will be cramped or too small to support their >claim”.
Surely the question needs to be asked the other way round: if Harris or anyone else claims that the site can support 950 pupils, it is up to professionals to produce the evidence in support of their claim. ie the Detailed Accomodation Schedule that CABE guidelines refer to which gives very precise formulas and classifications of size feasibility. Is this information classified? Should not Councillors of all persuasions be asking for this information to be publically debated before approving the school? There is also a very comprehensive and complicated document called “BUILDING BULLETIN 98″ which I understand is a reference for building new schools.
Lets please see a proper analysis of whether this 1.85acre site can accomodate this number of pupils. Let’s see examples of other schools, with this size footprint, with succesfull 950 pupil schools already running.
Such a document will settle a major point of dispute one way or the other.
And may I also make a positive suggestion which you and colleagues might explore?
Consider asking the Harris team to re site the Mixed 6th Form and increase the integration between boys and girls on the larger Upper Site as a solution to three issues:
i) this would reduce the number of pupils and facilities required in the new Lower Site design. They will not have so many pupil movements but can still retain a predominantly girls school on the upper site.
ii) enable Harris to keep to the overall size of the school which they claim they need for viable funding
iii) it will be a significant concession to those who want a CO ED School. Ie that there is separate teaching in Lower years and more integration the older children get like at Haberdashers’ Askes.
iv) Also lets explore further the Harris justification for a 6th form split over two sites: it is believed that a 6th form provides a role model that is an incentive for boys to remain longer in schooling. But consider this: suppose the Lower Site was developed as a small school for junior secondary boys. Then the 6th form and a few senior years were put on the the upper site mixed with girls, would this not form a very attractive goal for the secondary school boys to aspire to .. moving to the mixed Upper Site.
v) the fact that there would not be boys on the Upper Site for some years after the school was built would give the Upper School a good opportunity to adjust to the new dispensation
Also please consider the following: the Lower School is 1.85 acres - the Upper School is 5.95acres
Harris proposes to have the same number of pupils on each site. And if you look at their website, they state specifically that boys will not be able to leave the premises during school hours for safety reasons etc
How can they claim that they are offering an equal facility when the girs will have 3 x the elbow room than the boys?
When EDEN first engaged some 5 years ago with Waverley Governors on the subject of a Mixed Co Ed school, (which most parents still want if they were asked), a compromise was agreed of which the central planks were that there would be a Mixed 6th Form on the larger Upper Site and some integrated classes. The Southwark Feasibility Study also quoted BB82 (revised) to the effect that the Lower Site was only just suitable for 450 pupils ( in fact the recommended guidelines for this number were 1.95acres).
Would the DfES would not have approved a school if they thought it was too crowded to be viable? I have spoken to Harris about this very issue and they say the densities are comparable with their school at Crystal Palace. 950 may sound big but I am told it is around the average size for a secondary school.
Ruth said,
February 7, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Richard
The question of size is not about whether large or small schools are better. 950 is not a problem in itself - as you say it is an average sized school.Putting an averaged sized school onto a very small site is the problem.
People are confused because in the initial consultation Southwark said “the new school would either admit 90 or 120 pupils each year..because of the constraints of the available site” This would have meant a maximum of 600 because at this point the sixth form was to be located at the girls site, “for reasons of space”. What has changed since then to make the site now suitable for 950? Who has done an independent feasibility study on the suitability of a site this size for this number of pupils?
The architect at our consultation meeting told us that the size and site were comparable to the Lambeth Academy. This is simply untrue. Lambeth is a site of 1.78 hectares for 1200 pupils (and described as “well below the DFeS guidelines” on the CABE website) compared with 0.75 hectares for 950 for pupils at the East Dulwich site.Maybe you could check the figures for Crystal Palace.
In the Lambeth Academy Expression of Interest it says “a new academy requires 1.4 hectares of space”. We have half that amount of space.
The concerns of local residents are primarily about the suitability of this site for this many pupils. No one yet given any convincing arguements or evidence that it can work.