There are many reasons why we are unhappy with these proposals, but first and foremost we in Coombe Road have an issue with the lack of choice parents will have under the new system. Children from our area have historically gone to many of Brighton's secondary schools and will now find themselves tied to Falmer only. One school does not suit all and parents want the right to be able to apply to schools that they think are best for their children, even if their child is not guaranteed a place at them.
We believe that Coombe Road loses out badly under the new proposals. But we have also lost out during the process of consultation as we did not become aware of the Secondary Admissions Review and the proposed changes until late November. We have just discovered that parents at Bevendean Junior School received no information through the school until a couple of days before the Christmas holiday!
We are hoping that other Councillors will attend and will witness the strength of parents' feeling on this and perhaps even talk to us there.
Parents from all over the city who are concerned about the proposals are invited to attend.
Parents from the Coombe Road area will have a banner and placard making session on Friday after school, 3pm onwards, at Coombe Road School.
If you want to come and help please do. Try to get hold of a cardboard box or two from the local grocers shop or Asdas. If you want to make a banner, you can probably get a cheap sheet from Roseby's and some 1inch baton to attach it to at B&Q. You may also need a good solid stapler. Bear in mind that you will have to transport these to the demo on Saturday yourselves, but a banner to represent each area would be great.
Good luck and see you there!
Technorati Tags: Notice, Petition, Protest, Demo, SAR, Secondary Admissions Review
8 comments:
How on earth can you say you were "unaware of the Secondary Admissions Review until November"? This whole process has been going on for several years now, since the Council stupidly inroduced the "safe walking distance" criterion as being the main determining factor for admission to Secondary school in 2004. There was a whole series of public meetings during the summer of 2006. There have been letters in The Argus since at least 2005 - when some pupils at MY kids' school (Somerhill) have had NO CHANCE of accessing our nearest Secondary school, Blatchington Mill. DO YOU NOT REALISE THAT UNDER THE EXISTING DISTANCE ONLY CRITERION NO-ONE WHO LIVES IN COOMBE ROAD ITSELF WILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS DOROTHY STRINGER SCHOOL FOR SEPTEMBER 2007 UNLESS THEY HAVE A SIBLING LINK OR SPECIAL NEED? If a small number of people living in your area are VERY lucky, and very few people who live closer choose Varndean again for 2008 entry (unlikely when they see how oversubscribed Stringer will be for this year!) then they MAY be able to get your children into Varndean for September 2008. But after that - forget it! You live too far away from both schools. Please wake up!! Call the School Admissions Team on 293653. Ask them how far away you CURRENTLY live from Stringer, then try to gauge how much closer you will need to live to get access by the time YOUR eldest child will be going to Secondary school..then try to guess the relative popularity of Varndean by that time and maybe adjust your bets (preferences)accordingly. Roll up, roll up, you MAY just get a place for your child at your preferred school or you may be sent to whichever school has spare places that year. Alternatively you may choose to move house to be closer to Stringer/Varndean. But how close do you need to live to be CERTAIN of accessing a place at the school you prefer? No-one can ever know until until it's too late - i.e submit your form in October of previous year, and find out in March of the year your kid starts Secondary schoool how your bet went. And you can only guess based on the figures for the previous year. The current proposals give you access to either Patcham or Falmer. Both of these schools will improve substantially as the intake improves, as it will if the SAR proposals as presented in November 2006 are accepted. (Why do you assume that Patcham and Falmer will have separate catchment areas? That is NOT what the proposals say? If you support the proposals as originally presented, rather than as some in Patcham would like them to be, then you should say so!) Alternatively you may choose to move (if you can) to another catchment area where you have preferential access to another school or schools. This will entail some cost, and I am certainly not advocating that you do move, but at least you would then have a much higher degree of certainty than under the current system, of accessing the school you would prefer. I would like to end by saying that it is really unfortunate that due to a lack of foresight the council has ended up setting parent against parent across the City. We ALL want the best for our children and will do whatever is in our power to achieve that. Of course some of us are more principled than others in the steps we are prepared to countenance. Just be careful that YOU don't end up keeping things as they are - which will only benefit the people in Balfour Road/Preston Park/Fiveways and Hove Park - who are currently the only people who can fill in their Secondary School admissions forms with any certainty of accessing the oversubscribed schools of Stringer and Blatch. The rest of us - including Coombe Road! - will end up with whatever distant school, completely unrelated to our local community and with no-one that our childen know, is left over when those living closer have had their pick.
Best Wishes, Chris Bourne.
You write as if we are stupid - using capitals will not help your argument, nor telling us to call the Council to ask how far we are from Stringer. I think we can read maps and we even leave Coombe Road/Bevendean sometimes and drive to other places in the city. We are not fools. Under the old system we had a good chance of accessing several other schools. Now we only have access to two, perhaps one - the Working Group is never very clear about what is planned for us. Patcham is failing, I believe as a result of bad management from what I hear from relatives and friends with children there; they have an intake that does not present serious social problems in the same way that, in the end, COMART had to when the intake became so limited to the Whitehawk estates. However, parents from this area have historically sent their children to Patcham, and this should be allowed to continue. Meanwhile, the intake to Falmer will not have a comprehensive intake either way, and if a single catchment is imposed, all the fine work they have done will be completely undermined. The Academy looming on the horizon is not a prospect many at Coombe Road savour - we want a maintained school answerable in terms of curriculum and admissions to a local Council and to local parents, rather than a school answerable to no one but the sponsor - let alone a school that may be reduced in size from 21 to 4.2 hectares as suggested by a joint report by B&H Council and the Albion. You make many assumptions about Falmer's future success when so much criticism of Academies is being made by, amongst others, a teaching union. You also fail to recognise that a huge number of parents are very upset at hearing the news for the first time. Parents in Bevendean found out about the proposals just 2 days before the Christmas holidays; and parents in Portslade at Benfield School discovered about the proposals last Thursday. Saltdean parents are just finding out. The Secondary Admissions Review should have publicised these events far more effectively. Local press is simply not sufficient. Nor is sending information to schools at the very end of the summer term and not flagging it. Under those conditions it is likely to disappear in a pile of new key stage objectives for the following year. The Council should have sent info to all parents directly and also have consulted properly - with a questionnaire much sooner in the process containing questions that will provide decent qualitative data to use to inform and design the final proposals, rather than the vague questions that were asked of the focus groups last summer. We support Falmer, but equally, we believe that it does not suit all our children. In many ways, Coombe Road have historically been extremely reasonable about the inequalities in opportunities to access schools like Stringer and Varndean under the distance criteria. And why did you never invite us to campaign with you for a better system until now if you think we share the same problems with the current system? You are trying to encourage our solidarity with your cause very late in the day. We are aware that change is needed in the secondary schools system in Brighton, but this is not the answer. Nor do we want this battle between parents. We can see that you want more opportunities for your children to access the better schools, but do not do this by ensuring that our children are not given the slightest chance of a choice. This is not just about accessing the "best" schools, or local schools, but should be about accessing schools that are right for individual children too - not imposing a one size fits all inflexible system like fixed catchments. Please desist from using the capital letters - you are haranguing us in print and it appears as unreasonable rather than rational and objective. It might also serve your cause better, and more to the point, the city's need for a decent secondary system, to stop demonising parents from Fiveways, Balfour, Preston Park and Hove Park. Negociation and discussion is far more productive for our children than a slanging match.
Anonymous isn't on the Working Group, or working for the council is he/she? I say that because so far they have also stuck their heads in the sand with regard to accepting that they have not informed a huge number of parents in the City about the SAR 'consultation'.
How is it that we did not know about it? We didn't get sent a letter, we didn't get information sent home with the children in the book bag, no one rang us to talk about it. All these options were open to the Council if they had genuinely wanted to consult with *all* the parents in Brighton and Hove. Placing a small ad in the local paper really is a half-hearted approach to contacting parents. It smacks of someone at the Council thinking of the easiest way that they could 'tick' the consultation box, without having to put in any real effort.
The only solution now is for them to extend the consultation, and this time making sure that parents all over the City have the opportunity to voice their opinions, not just the small minority that have the time to read the Argus!
In addition to the last comment I would like to add that even our school was unsure of the situation, information only came through a few days before the end of last term (how convenient!) Concerned parents who wanted more information had to wait, even when asked by the school the council said the info. had already been sent out and we would have to wait until it arrived. I wonder when schools that the SAR favours received their information?
I totally agree with much of Chris Bourne's analysis of the shortcomings of the current system. However, this does not mean that the SAR proposals are the solution to the problem. Maybe it makes supporters of the proposals feel better to believe that our children wouldn't get into anywhere but Falmer anyway. The new proposals are a big improvement for some people, but there are many, not just in the Coombe Raod area, who previously had some choice, and under these proposals will not. Just moving the area of discontent is not a solution.
What is needed to solve the problem is another school. Regardless of what system you have there arent any places left. What happens when the 750 homes at King Alfred come on line not to mention New England quarter, Preston Barracks and more.
I feel strongly for parents who live so far from any school they cant get into the (currently) popular schools. The council should however be improving the failing schools rather than just seeking to move the burden of dicontent to another part of the city.
The current proposals would be a disaster for many as has been demonstrated by the letters, emails, petitions etc. With no slack in the system there will always be an element of discontent, it just depends whwre it is located.
Final point - I see that the new code of admissions when dealing with discrimination doesnt mention "geographical areas" of any sort. Maybe that will put to rest the idea that areas and not in individuals can be discriminated against.
Keep up the good work Coombe Roaders!
I had prepared a long response to some of the earlier posts but having read the abuse from Mr Obi Won I don't think I will bother publishing it. (Some of the other responses to my post were a little preposterous in their accusations too, to be honest.)
As the BLOG author you exhorted me that "negotiation and discussion is far better for our children than a slanging match". I agree with that sentiment - pity that some of the other posters do not.
If you, as the BLOG owner want to let me know how I can contact you to engage in negotiation and discussion I will be happy to meet you.
Alternatively we can just agree to disagree and wait til 2nd February when this will all be over.
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