11 Plus Exams Forum

Anyone interested in the shortage of school places for North Kingston might like to attend this meeting:

Secondary School for North Kingston, Public Meeting, Wednesday 11th July

Dear Resident,

I am arranging a public meeting to discuss issues surrounding the much needed secondary school in north Kingston. It will take place at the North Kingston Centre, Richmond Road, KT2 5PE, at 7pm on Wednesday 11th July.

I will be joined by Councillors, Andrea Craig and Patricia Bamford as well as the Council's Director of Education, who will explain the Council's plans to increase school places in the Borough.

The lack of school places is a real issue for North Kingston, and I hope that this meeting will allow the Council to hear from residents, and residents to better understand the Council's plans.

Everyone is welcome, and I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Zac Goldsmith
MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston

Thank you, Suzanne, for bringing this up.

Hope the participants would also ask for Tiffins to play its part in resolving this serious issue.

Meeting is today.

How did it go?

Well a little disappointing really as it is all up in the air......

It looks like an application for a Free School will be made.

It is not clear how many pupils can be accommodated on the North Kingston Centre site as it is quite a small site sandwiched between Fernhill School and Tiffin Girls. It is not clear whether the existing building will be demolished and a complete rebuild which will cost more but may accommodate 8 forms of entry. Alternatively a refurbishment could be done which will be cheaper but not accommodate so many.

The council say an 8 form entry school is needed for North Kingston.

It is not clear who will run the school - a joint partnership with Kingston Uni was mentioned.

It is not clear whether the funds are available.

It is not clear when the new school would be ready.

Community involvement is now needed and anyone with any views on how to take this forward should contact Zac Goldsmith.

The Head of Grey Court was there and confirmed the cutting of links with Kingston and although Grey Court has increased its admission numbers to 240 this is not sustainable and will be cut back to 210.

Honestly, the only reasonable option is that Tiffins go back to its 1989 (pre-Greenwich ruling)admission policy. The 290-300 places would go a long way in helping Kingstonians.

Just received the notification for another meeting - it will be held ;

Date : 11/10/12
Time : 7pm.
Place : North Kingston Centre

Capacity - 200. Register attendance 0208 547 5320 or email new.school@rbk.kingston.gov.uk

I received a little more information in a letter from The Director of Learning regarding North Kingston's proposed new school and the forthcoming meeting.

The meeting will discuss a Free School application.

It appears that they are looking to accommodate current Yr 5 pupils and below.

The proposals have been cut from 8 form to 6 form entry.

The new school will be on the North Kingston site next to Tiffin Girls'.

I will be attending the meeting and hope to hear more details then.

some info from the letter:
I also stated at the meeting that the original plan for an eight-form entry school now appears
to be larger than we might need and that it would be preferable to scale it down to six forms
of entry. Since that meeting, we have undertaken further work to gauge forecast demand for
secondary school places across the borough as a whole and North Kingston in particular,
including the availability of places at Grey Court in neighbouring Richmond Borough, and we
are very carefully assessing the likely scale of demand in the next decade and beyond.
The next round of free school submissions to the Department for Education is for proposals
that would, if approved, open in September 2014. Although that is a year before a new north
Kingston secondary school would be required, I believe that it would be helpful for a free
school bid to be made as soon as the submission process allows. The closing-date for
making a submission is 4 January 2013, so any group who wishes to submit one would have
to develop its plans rapidly. The meeting we are holding on 11th October will seek to facilitate
support for a proposal that KET is developing. We will assist KET in any way that it needs,
for example by providing historical and forecast pupil data and other relevant information.

I think LA should rather as well spend some more time on lobbying Tiffins Governors in bring in catchment policies, which will help more in combating the secondary school place shortages. The two schools have 300 places between them and even if 200 are brought in for local children in Kingston/Richmond, it will help.

At the moment, LA and Council has totally hands off policy and the fiasco of their poor advise re admission arrangements is clearly shown by the recent adjudication.

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