My Response to Robert Henderson's letter

I have responded to Robert Henderson's letter to Zac Goldsmith and asked for some key questions to be answered. The letter and the questions are below.

Mr Henderson responded almost immediately with an offer to meet and I am now awaiting some appointment times from his office. I will of course keep everyone updated with news.

Here's my note

Dear Mr Henderson

Proposals for development at Strathmore School, and The Russell School, Petersham

I am parent with 3 children at The Russell School, Petersham.

It is important upfront to say that I am not against facilities at the two schools being upgraded and modernised. I am however,  firmly, against this being funded by the sale of school land – ‘Brownfield’ or ‘Greenfield’ - especially when it is likely this land will  to be sold to developers for housing.

Zac Goldsmith forwarded on to me your reply to his inquiry about proposed plans at Strathmore School and The Russell School.

I am afraid your reply fails to answer many questions parents are asking, and also fails to alert Mr Goldsmith to many of the issues parents are raising at The Russell School. I hope you don’t mind therefore that I have annotated your reply with some points that I would like to raise and have answers to. Your letter is in blue and italics, my responses in black and italics. For ease, I have listed the questions separately at the end of the letter.

Your letter begins…

We have responded to information requests of this nature a number of times and the plans are set out in the consultation document published on the council’s website, accessed via the following link: Consultation - London Borough of Richmond upon Thames <http://www.richmond.gov.uk/sen_consultation>    The published document include a timeline which has been also been distributed to the community.

I do not believe the timeline you mention is contained in the consultation document. A timeline was distributed at the meeting organised by local councillors (not the Council) on July 24^th.This timeline makes reference to the fact that it is a possibility that school land at The Russell may be sold. This is not mentioned at all in the consultation document. Parents were therefore invited to comment on a consultation document that omitted to mention a fairly vital piece of information about The Russell School – and we now learn should have contained a timeline that it apparently didn’t.

The situation to date is that we have just consulted informally on a proposal to deliver services to children and young people with severe learning difficulties through a split site model, either side of the river at primary and secondary. This would include The Russell School, Greycourt School and the Clifden site in Twickenham.  It would mean no longer using the Strathmore School which is not suitable for delivering services to this group.

 If the Strathmore facilities are no longer suitable, then something must indeed be done. However the consultation document you mention states, in relation to Strathmore, that “There is a desire on the schools’ and our part to move the overall effectiveness of the schools from (OFSTED) ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. Improvements to the buildings and facilities of the schools are critical to achieving this”.

In fact the OFSTED Report on Strathmore School makes no mention of buildings at all. The reasons stated why the school is given a ‘good’ rating and not an ‘outstanding’ rating are related

1) to teaching issues and

2) to the performance of the Governing Body.

Of course, I would reiterate that I would like the SEN facilities in Richmond to be the very best – but when I read the motivation driving the project appears to be factually incorrect, I can’t help but wonder if some other motivation is behind the drive to sell school land.

I note that the consultation document references another study, which apparently states that improving the facilities, is vital in improving the OFSTED rating. This seems odd given OFSTED have other issues with the school. That report was also not made available to parents at the Russell School.

In relation to Strathmore School the plan is to sell the site and use the funding to support the development of key stage one, two, three and four provision at The Russell School, Greycourt School and Clifden site. Strathmore School will remain as a School with a head teacher but be based on these 3 sites with separate and specialist facilities for Strathmore pupils as well as shared areas. The programme is based on a number of current opportunities – the development of Greycourt’s sixth form provision, the building of a combined secondary and primary school on the Clifden site and the expansion primary school places of The Russell School, which will be subject to a separate consultation and which is not dependent on the development of key stage 2 provision for the Strathmore  pupils. This is a major opportunity to provide high class, fit for purpose specialist facilities for the most vulnerable children and remove them from a building clearly unsuitable. There are insufficient Council funds to rebuild the Strathmore School on its current site.  

A few points here. Firstly I understand at the meeting on 24 July, parents were told that rebuilding on Strathmore was still a possibility (the meeting was recorded so this in easily verified). Can you confirm this? If so, is that still the case?

Secondly, I have also been told that in fact the funds to develop Grey Court and Clifden are already set aside from Council Reserves. Again is this correct? If so, why has no money been put aside for The Russell School from Council reserves?

Could you also confirm the any valuations the Council has received on land at both schools, plus any estimates of the rebuild.

The primary ambition of the consultation was not and is not about buildings or property. It is about what the best model is and facilities are best for meeting the needs of this group of children and their families.

This rather begs a question -  why has there been a consultation in which no parent at The Russell School has been given any papers, research or consultation documents that demonstrate this is best for children both with and without SEN? None has been supplied. If this is really what the consultation was about, then this is quite extraordinary. I look forward to hearing from you why we have been asked to give an opinion without being given any evidence either way on which to make a judgement.

On the basis of this we are now considering going to statutory consultation and at this stage relevant schools including Grey Court, The Russell and Strathmore are gauging the views of parents about what is in the best interest of children, especially those currently at Strathmore School, in order to ensure that parents support the changes.

Firstly, despite voting papers at the Russell School being handed out with a one page note painting only a positive picture of the proposed changes, and recommending progressing, parents at The Russell School have voted ‘no’ to these proposals. I hope given what you have written above, that that is therefore an end to any plan.

In addition you are probably aware that a considerable number of parents have signed the on line petition against these proposals. The petition can be found at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-sell-off-school-land-in-petersham/

If parents are in support we will be going into statutory consultation. At this stage detailed plans will be available about how we intend to educate the pupils currently at Strathmore School across the three sites and how this will be funded. The community will have ample opportunity to offer their views at this stage but again this consultation will focus on the needs and outcomes of children and young people and their parents.

Once the outcome of the statutory consultation is known a decision to proceed will need to be made by the Cabinet. Cabinet will make a decision whether or not to proceed and how to fund the project. If the outcome is positive this will lead to a full planning application which again involves statutory consultation.

In this context the community will have lots of opportunities to have their views heard.

Russell parents are opposed to these plans, especially as more and more of the funding details become known. If further consultation is taken, I trust that full details of any sale of school land will be made known.

The issue at the moment is that there is a proportion of the community who are stating that decisions have already been made, which they have not and spreading information which is factually incorrect.

I would be interested in knowing if information on the campaign website is factually incorrect (http://notosellingpetershamschoolland.blogspot.co.uk/ ). If anything on the website is factually incorrect we will gladly issue a correction – but almost everything we have published has been backed up in writing or through recordings. We are trying to avoid publishing ‘hearsay’.

On this point there is a rumour that the Council officials asked Governors not to share aspects of their thinking with the wider school community or local people, especially around. Can you confirm this is incorrect? I will happily publish that fact.

Finally, out of interest, has the council undertaken any other studies into environmental impact, traffic impact, safety issues etc of developing on the site? If so, who have these been shared with?

We have undertaken consultation to date and this has included;
 

·       During June, July and August 2012 (covering a period of seven weeks) the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames started a consultation process on proposals to improve the buildings and facilities of Strathmore School. The proposals outlined plans to create purpose-built facilities co-located with three mainstream schools. The consultation document and on-line survey were available on the Council website from Monday 18 June until Friday 3 August 2012 with paper copies being made available on request from the schools and Civic Centre. 

I will insert another parent’s points here as they put the case against this beautifully

“Although the school made a one sentence reference to the SEN consultation at the end of a printed (not emailed) school newsletter in June, it is apparent that very few parents picked up on this, read the consultation or understood the implications for the Russell school. This became apparent through discussions I have had with other parents and residents who were unaware of the plans to sell land and by the fact that I was one of only two Russell parents who attended the consultation meeting at Strathmore on June 26.

Further in a letter on July 16, two days before the end of term, the school wrote to parents about the SEN consultation. The letter for the first time acknowledged the plans for a ‘new build for the Russell’ and that the governors had only recently been informed of these plans…..

…the letter of July 16 fails to mention the intention to sell the Russell Infants site for housing and it falsely informed parents that the closing date of the consultation was July 18 (i.e. 2 days after the letter) as opposed to the correct date of 3 August. When this error was pointed out, the school failed to send a correction. At this time, the consultation form on the Council website was not working correctly”.

In other words, the main communication from the school gave parents 2 days to respond, when the website was not working anyway.

·       There were public meetings held at two different locations in the Borough – one at Strathmore School on Tuesday 26 June at 7.00pm and the other on Thursday 12 July at 2.00pm at Windham Croft Centre. The dates of these meetings were posted on the Council website and available to parents via school newsletters and notices. There was also a press release placed in the Richmond and Twickenham Times on Friday 20 July giving information about the consultation.

Yet no meeting was arranged for Russell School parents. Presumably this is a tacit admission from the Council that our views were not considered important? Why is this the case?

·       In addition to this a residents’ meeting, arranged by ward councillors from Petersham and Ham, on Tuesday 24 July at 7.30pm at The Russell School was attended by local authority officers. There was considerable community representation which focused on traffic and parking issues as well as what developments would occur if Strathmore and parts of The Russell School were sold. There are no clear answers to these questions but the community were assured that they would be informed and given the opportunity to state their views at the appropriate time 

Yes, councillors arranged a meeting as the council failed to do so. I am told that issues like the potential sale of Russell School land only came out after persistent questioning from parents. Is this correct? Again, there is a recording of this meeting available. Why was the council so reluctant to admit they had discussed selling Russell School land?  That the Russell School land could be sold was confirmed in a letter to parents at the Russell last week for the first time.

As noted, this stage of the consultation has been primarily aimed at parents, staff and governors of the three schools concerned. It should be noted that there were some slight glitches with the on-line survey in the early stages of the consultation which were resolved. However, this may have resulted in some views not being captured so individual schools have decided to consult further with parents to ensure that their views are fully represented.

As mentioned earlier, parents at the Russell have voted no these plans, and in considerably higher numbers have signed the petition against these proposals.

With regard to the sale of land the original document makes it clear that funding of the build will be met by funds from the Council with additional contributions from the sale of the redundant site. On the basis of the consultation this will be reviewed.

I do hope this responds to the concerns you raise. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

I would appreciate answers to my questions. For ease, I have listed them overleaf.

Thanks and best wishes

Richard Morris

My questions:

Why was the timeline not part of the consultation document (as you wrote in your letter). Why was there no mention of the possibility of the sale of land at The Russell School in the consultation document (yet it is mentioned in the missing timeline)

Why does the consultation document claim that new buildings are vital to Strathmore improving its OFSTED rating from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’ when the OFSTED report makes no mention of the buildings, and cites a) teaching issues and b) the performance of the governing body at Strathmore as the issues that need changing.

Was it indeed suggested to parents in the 24^th July meeting that rebuilding Strathmore on the current site was a possibility? If so, what has changed?

Is it true that the Council has already allocated funds from reserves for development work at Grey Court and Clifden? Why has no money from reserves been allocated for The Russell?

Can you confirm the valuations that the Council has received on the Strathmore and Russell School land, and also the estimates the council has received for the rebuild

Why, if the consutlation is about the best model of care for the children, have parents been given no evidence either way for the proposed model on which to base their judgement?

Could you confirm you are aware of the on line petition against this proposal and that you have noted the numbers signing it? Could you also confirm you are aware that Russell school parents voted against these proposals?

Could you confirm there is no truth to the rumours circulating that Council officials asked Governors not to share aspects of their thinking with the wider school and local community?

Can you confirm that the council has not commissioned any other studies into potential impacts of developing on the Strathmore/Russell school sites (which would seem somewhat premature given this is an informal initial consultation).

Can you confirm that in the two days Russell School parents were informed they had to complete the on line consultation document, that the document was down and incapable of taking comment?

Why was no meeting arranged for Russell School Parents as it was for Strathmore?

Why were parents not told in writing that land at The Russell school could be sold to developers until after the consultation forms had been returned?

Can you confirm that other funding options will be looked at for the development that do not include any sale of school land. Can you also confirm that the Council will not sell the Strathmore land if other funds are found?