Where places are available in Brent secondary schools after September 2016 offers

Yesterday was 'offer day' in Brent for Year 6 children to hear news of whether their applications for a secondary school place for September 2016 had been successful. Children who applied by post, rather than electronically, will receive a response today or tomorrow.

The full quota has been filled by most Brent secondary schools with Ark Elvin (formerly Copland), Crest Academy and Newman Catholic College (boys only) having vacancies or small waiting lists.

The table below gives details of how the places were allocated and is worth studying in terms of equal opportunities. Is there an equal distribution of children with special educational needs? What is the impact of 'feeder primary schools' for children from primary schools without such links? What proportion of places go to children with siblings already at the secondary school? How many places were offered to current Year 6 children at the two 'all through' (containing both primary and secondary schools) Preston Manor and Ark Academy (Wembley Park).

There is a continuing imbalance  of school provision between north and south Brent which will be worsened if the proposal for a new North Brent secondary free school goes ahead and if the proposed Gladstone Secondary Free School continues to fail to find premises.

The plight of children who are only children or the oldest in the family (ie no sibling connection), who do not attend a feeder school or the primary department of an all through school, without SEN and who live some distance from their desired school is particularly concerning.

Guidance for parents who are not happy with their school place allocation is available on the Brent Council website HERE

6 out of 10 Brent pupils get offer from their first preference secondary school

Brent Year 6 pupils heard yesterday if they had received an offer of a place from their  preferred secondary school.  Parents can indicate up to 6 preferences  in order. The picture is somewhat complicated in Brent by the fact that the Gateway and Gladstone Secondary Free Schools are still taking applications through their own admissions system.

This is the situation regarding Brent, with its adjacent boroughs and the London Average for comparison:

LA	1st preference offers %	2nd  %	3rd %	4th %	5th %	6th %	Not offered any pref
Brent	64.88	14.79	7.52	3.54	1.25	0.75	7.25
Barnet	71.66	13.26	5.41	2.04	1.01	0.60	6.02
Camden	62.22	19.18	7.76	2.82	0.77	0.51	6.74
Ealing	65.33	16.27	6.47	2.73	1.45	1.08	6.66
Hamm’th	58.45	16.57	7.73	4.33	1.95	1.02	9.95
Westminster	58.42	15.56	9.69	5.70	2.47	0.60	7.56
London Av	69.08	14.88	6.10	2.73	1.42	0.55	5.24

The 7.25% of pupils who did not receive an offer from any of their preferred schools are likely to be offered places at Crest or Copland.

There is still much uncertainty over children offered places at Gladstone and Gateway which have still not acquired school sites six months before they are due to open. Michaela has a building but no work has yet started on its refurbishment.

Council sells off more land for Bridge Park development - but no new secondary school

Stonebridge bus garage before conversion

Bridge Park Leisure Centre with Unisys House in background

Indicative scheme for the site

Tomorrow's Executive is to consider another council land sale financed development along similar lines to that at Willesden Green Library which provoked so much controversy. DETAILS

The Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre would be rebuilt as part of the scheme with some of its council owned land sold to the developer. A compulsory Purchase Order would be served on the car breakers that occupy part of the site. Bridge Park includes a number of business units and the separate Technology House office block is used by a children's nursery and a church.

The Centre was built on the site of the old Stonebridge bus station (I seem to remember trolley buses) and was partially a response to fears of disorder on the Stonebridge Estate in the wake of the 1985 riots.

Before land sale and compulsory purchase order

After land sale and CPO

The Unisys site is owned by General Mediterranean Holdings and they plan to build 512 dwellings and a hotel on their part of the site. The proposal differs from that for Willesden Green in that this involves a direct land sale rather than an agreement with a third party. Brent Council would procure its own architects and builders to build the new sports centre rather than developer such as Galliford Try.

The report states:

The Sale Agreement passes the risk of residential and commercial sales to the developer. So for example the council considered GMH carrying out the whole development on behalf of the council including building the sports centre. While this would remove the sports centre build cost risk to the council it would raise other issues. If the council for example set out its requirements for the sports centre and imposed an obligation to deliver the new sports centre in accordance with that specification then it would have tocomply with the European OJEU procurement rules and undertake a fully compliant and separate procurement process. This is despite the fact the landowner (GMH) has no intention of selling to a third party. A land sale avoids this protracted procurement process. The council would have to procure its own architects and build contractors but can do this effectively by using existing pre-OJEU procured frameworks.

It appears that the council has learned some lessons from the Willesden Green Library Centre development. However as with most schemes sold as 'gift horses' it is worth a closer look, particularly, as in the case of Willesden Green, the repercussions of occupying a smaller site as the result of the land sale.

The report says there is not need to specify the housing at this stage but somewhat ominously states:

  A minimum of 5% of all dwellings will be affordable but will be limited in order to fund the sports centre.

 In the Willesden Green development Galliford Try successfully persuaded the Council  that they would  not be able to build the Cultural Centre at zero cost to Brent Council if they had to build affordable housing.

Among the potential losers are the 37 business units in the Bridge Park complex. The Council  suggests they could be relocated in the commercial floor space proposed by GMH, relocate to other council owned space such as Harlesden Design Works or to 'other industrial spaces' in Park Royal. The current conference rooms in the Centre would not be replaced although the large function space would be, although a swimming pool could be installed instead as an option. It is noted that the latter would be a significant cost but would help secure the financial viability of the Centre.  The report notes that the proposed swimming pool on the site of Dexion House in Wembley 'shows no sign of being developed'.  In line with some of the schemes for school expansion a possible domed 5-a-side football pitch on the roof of the new sports centre is suggested.

There are no plans to replace the children's nursery although there is an option for a children's play area. The report merely says that it will 'look at further options to replace the nursery during the consultation process'. Remember the Willesden Bookshop...

Perhaps most importantly, in terms of the predicted shortage of secondary school places in Brent and the dearth of secondary schools south of the North Circular Road, a possible redevelopment involving an 8 form entry secondary school AND a shared sports centre on the site is rejected. This is because:

...there are currently no allocated funds to build a new school (c£18m), a new sports centre (c£9m) and additional flood storage (part of the site is in a identified flood zone) (c£1-2m)

512 new dwellings will of course add to the pressure on school places. It will be interesting to see how these proposals develop and are received by current users of the site. Certainly the Unisys site, empty and decaying for so long, needs to be utilised for something useful.

Brent's headaches as it tries to expand secondary school places

Brent Council is faced with increasing demand for secondary school places as the increase in primary numbers moves through the system. Unfortunately, although charged with an overall responsibility to provide school places, to a large extent it exercises 'responsibility without power' as so many Brent secondary schools have become academies or are voluntarily aided and sources of finance are not directly under the Council's control.

An extensive study has led to a report going before the Executive on January 14th which recommends expansion in some schools (subject to governing body approval) and the use of the Gwenneth Rickus Building (Centre for Staff Development) in Brentfield Road as a six forms of entry secondary school. This building which was formerly part of Sladebrook High School, is next to the Swaminarayan Independent School, and is now surplus to requirements with the facility moving to the Civic Centre in the summer.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that three secondary schools, due to parental preference, are currently operating below capacity. These are Copland, following the financial mismanagement allegations; Crest Academy Boys and Newman College. The report states that the first priority is to bring these schools up to scratch so that all their places are used.

Wembley High is ruled out of expansion because it is proposed to make this an all-through school providing places for primary as well as secondary children in line with Ark and Preston Manor. The governing body of Preston Manor have recently decided to become a Cooperative Academy although this is likely to be strongly contested by education unions. The Copland and Alperton expansions are subject to rebuilds under the government's Priority School Buildings Programme.

If this wasn't enough Gove's reforms have thrown another wild card into the game with the report stating that there are three secondary  free school proposals:

In the event that government’s grant application for 2013-14 and following years is inadequate to meet the Council’s entire demand for funding new provision, we are considering the following options:

 Free Schools: The Executive noted that the demand for new school places cannot be met only through the expansion of existing schools due to the limited availability of funding; the Council is required to promote additional ways of creating school places by pursuing the current government agenda on free schools and academies. The latest round of free school applications is being considered by the Department for Education (DfE) in the new year with an opening date of September 2014. Given that the Council is not looking to open a new secondary school at this date, it has not collaborated with any potential providers at this point. There are likely applications submitted for Brent, however. These include:

• an independent school group looking to open an 11 to 18 school in Wembley – of approximately 4 forms of entry, planning to provide Year 10 places immediately as well as Year 7.

• a parent led school in Cricklewood to address perceived lack of choice for parents in that area (6FE).

4.5 In addition an already approved free school has been looking to acquire a site in Brent and open a 6FE secondary school in September 2013.

4.6 All three of the above have said in discussion that they would aim to meet the Partnership Criteria agreed by the Executive in August 2012 but it is clear that two of them would be likely to use the freedoms available to free schools in respect of staffing and the curriculum

Note that although the Council says it has not 'collaborated with any potential providers' they appear, as oen would expect,  to have had discussions with them. The council cannot really take these into account in its present planning as decision making is with the DfE and even when some free school applications have been approved they have failed to materialise.

Clearly the arguments made against academies and free schools on the grounds that they undermine the local authority's  capacity to make clear and rational plans to meet pupil demand gain traction based on these difficulties.  Most of the proposals are given a Medium Risk category in the report with the Gwenneth Rickus proposal deemed High Risk because of potential planning issues.

The Kingsbury High proposal would result in an extremely large school with 435 pupils in each year group based on a class size of 30.

Summary of the proposals:

School	Status	Current Forms of Entry	Proposed Addition Forms of Entry	Delivery of additional forms of entry
Alperton	Academy	7.3	1	2017/18-2019/20 (PFI)
Ark	Academy	6	0
Capital City	Academy	6.5	0
Claremont	Academy	8.4	0
Convent Jesus and Mary	VA Academy	6	0
Copland	Foundation	8	1	2017/18-2019/20 (PFI)
JFS	VA	10	0
Kingsbury	Academy	10.5	4.5	2015/16-2016/17
Newman Catholic	VA Trust	5	0
Preston Manor	Foundation Trust (pending Academy)	8.4	0
Queens Park	Academy	6.7	2	2014/15
St Gregory’s RC	VA	5.9	0
The Crest Boys	Academy	4	1	September 2014
The Crest Girls	Academy	5	1	September 2014
Wembley High	Academy (proposed All-Through)	7	0
Gwenneth Rickus Building	Possible satellite of existing school	0	6	2015/16-2016/17

Parents bid for secondary free school in NW2 area

A small group of Brent parents are in the process of applying to the Department for Education to open a secondary free school in the NW2 area.

They have circulated e-mails to local residents and are distributing leaflets at local primary schools in an effort to get a minimum of 240 parents of children currently in Year 4 or 5 to pledge support for their application. The deadline is just before Christmas.

I have been warning for some time that the disproportionate number of secondary schools in the south of Brent, compared with the north, could lead to such an application. I have also suggested that many parents prefer a smaller school. This proposal is for a four form entry which would make it smaller than some of the expanded Brent primary schools.

The group have a website HERE.

They summarise their proposal thus:

Gladstone is an exciting new school offering 120 places each year to 11-19 year olds in north west London. Designed by education professionals and parents, the school will create strong links with universities, the local community and London's creative, scientific and cultural organisations.

Our vision is for an ambitious, popular, community-focused school. The knowledge, skills and confidence it provides will transform the aspirations and achievements of all it touches. We'll set high standards, because young people learn best when we expect the best of them. Children starting with us will receive academic rigour, inspirational teaching and rich cultural and physical activities. But we'll also focus on enjoyment since the most ambitious targets are met when learners are active, happy and motivated. Those children will leave us as successful young adults, with qualifications to secure the best that life offers. And they will know the pride of being part of a community, but the confidence to go it alone.

This is what they say about their ethos:

The "inspiration; confidence; success" mantra underpins and informs the management of every element of our school life, from individual child to whole-school policies. Any planned action must be measured against the same checklist: how does this inspire students? how does it increase their confidence? how can we, or they, measure success?

 

It also provides a firm foundation for the school ethos, which includes the following aims:

• to provide a strong academic curriculum, balanced with creative and entrepreneurial activities;
• to promote individual ambition by setting and monitoring personalised targets for every student, alongside tailored academic and pastoral support, so that every student maximises their academic and personal potential;
• to relentlessly pursue exciting and inspirational opportunities for all students, and to seek out individuals and organisations who can support these aspirations;
• to capitalise on the interests, passions and expertise of local parents and the community;
• to ensure all students secure the academic achievements needed to go on to university, if they choose to;
• to encourage and empower young people to become independent: in their learning and their lives generally; and
• to attract and retain the very best teachers by providing them with tailored support, encouragement and professional development opportunities.

I have submitted a number of searching questions to the group about their proposal and hope to carry their answers soon. The questions focus on issues of  access, equality, accountability and teachers' conditions of service.