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New Catholic school named, despite High Court battle (From This Is Local London)
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New Twickenham Catholic school named, despite High Court battle
9:00am Saturday 13th October 2012 in News By Rachel Bishop
Blazer: The new uniform
Plans for the proposed Catholic school in Twickenham are pushing forward as the name for the school is announced this week.
The school in Clifden Road has been named Saint Richard Reynolds Catholic College, with plans for the school uniform also decided upon.
In a press release issued this week, it was said the school “will open by September 2013” despite campaign groups having being successfully granted a judicial review into the processes the council carried out in regards to establishing a Catholic school.
The director for education for the Diocese of Westminster, Paul Barber, said: “In the meantime, the law imposes a statutory duty on both the diocese and the council to implement the proposals that have been approved. We will therefore be complying with that duty to ensure the schools are ready to open in September 2013.”
The British Humanist Association and Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign (Risc) argue the council thought there was a need for a new school but failed to seek proposals for an academy or free school before going ahead with the Catholic school.
There will be 10 places in the primary school which will be allocated on the basis of distance from the school and not on the religion of the child. The remaining 20 places will be allocated with priority given to baptised Catholic children.
Parents can also apply for a place at the secondary school for children currently in year 6 at primary school.
If the judicial review is not successful, St Richard Reynolds Catholic Primary School and St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School will open next year.
An open day about the schools will be held in the main hall at Clifden Road on Saturday, October 20.
- Following last week’s front page story in the RTT, Risc claimed the headline “Gove support for Catholic School” was incorrect.
In a statement they say: “There no evidence to support the council’s claim that the Secretary of State for education has confirmed their decision on Catholic Schools is lawful.
“The Government has intervened on the council’s side in the case being brought against them. But that is on a legal point that has already been raised. It introduces a different emphasis, and will complicate the court hearing, but it may well not sway the outcome.”
According to Risc, neither side has so far produced a statement by Michael Gove saying he either supports or does not support a Catholic school in Twickenham.
Comments(11)
sirarthurbliss
says...
7:24pm Sun 14 Oct 12
The emphasis on 10 inclusive places (which the R&TT presumably simply copied verbatim from a press release) smacks of desperation.
LizzyJ
says...
7:47pm Sun 14 Oct 12
If a Catholic child living near the school applies for a Community place at the Primary, then they will have guaranteed entry into the Secondary. However, if they take one of the Catholic primary places instead then their admission to the Secondary will depend on a lottery. That's bonkers, and may well lead to the topsy-turvy situation where Catholic families are pretending not to be Catholic to get into a Catholic school!
The only mitigation to that is that they might well be competing fiercely with non-Catholics for those places. Why? Because central Twickenham is a community-primary-ad
missions-free-zone. You can't get into Trafalgar and Stanley from there. If you don't go to church to get into Archdeacon or St Mary's you end up with nothing (only to be allocated someone else's unwanted place further down the line, which could be anywhere in the borough). Ironically the Richard Reynold places will be the only 'community' places in town.
Riverman
says...
10:37pm Sun 14 Oct 12
Dellon
says...
10:02am Mon 15 Oct 12
So if a VA model with exclusive admissions is allowed, it will be called a 'College', if not, there would still be an academy and called a 'High School'. I wouldn't expect many non-Catholics to choose this school but at least there would be an option of a school place when all the others fill up, without discrimination against siblings.
JeremyRodell
says...
10:21am Mon 15 Oct 12
You're right that, legally, VA schools have to allow in non-Catholics if they have spare places (and they benefit from that financially). But no-one has seriously questioned the intent of the admissions policy: this is a secondary school for children of Catholics. We have written evidence that the VA structure was chosen in order to secure up to 100% exclusivity.
Heliview
says...
10:49am Mon 15 Oct 12
.uk/richmond/index.h
tml ....
"St Richard Reynolds Catholic College is the name of the Federation which includes the High School and the new Catholic Primary School to be housed on the same site."
There is no mention of an Academy, or what, if anything, the proposal would be replaced with if the JR is successful.
Dellon
says...
11:32am Mon 15 Oct 12
My point about non-Catholics accessing the school is to reinforce how much fairer an academy would be compared to a VA school. As a VA school it would undoubtedly be popular but it will take a couple of years to establish itself. It may take a few non-Catholics but their siblings would later face the discrimination of being lower on the list in priority than 'any other Catholics anywhere'. Whereas an academy with 50% community admissions would at least give such siblings an equal chance of getting into the school.
The 10 community places at the primary school could also divide non-Catholic families in this way, which could be the case for those parents accepting a bulge class place at Sacred Heart this year.
Dellon
says...
11:47am Mon 15 Oct 12
Julie Hill
says...
1:40pm Tue 16 Oct 12
Given that this is an incredibly overparked area and many households have not just one but two cars, Station Road is used by a great many residents in addition to those using it as a cut through to avoid the High Street. The area parallel to the railway is often gridlocked during the early morning rush hour.
Is any consideration being given to this?
aspicer
says...
1:06pm Thu 18 Oct 12
This will increase the rat-runs along this stretch of road. Lack of easy access to the A316 will increase rat-runs past this school, as it has along meadway, as cars try to squeeze 'through the fence' onto the A316 each morning.
Road planning at its best. Maybe only a child death will ever guide the council in a better direction.
JeremyRodell says...
5:53pm Sat 13 Oct 12
There - if the Council and the Diocese get their way - children of Catholics will be prioritised for 100% of the places. The only exception will be children from the 10 "community" places at the primary, many of which are themselves likely to be taken by children of Catholics who live near the school. The effect is therefore intended to be that 100% of the secondary places will go to children of Catholics for the first 7 years. Then in 2020, when the first batch of children emerge from the primary, it will drop to between 93.5% and 100%.
Children of parents who are not religious, Anglicans, other Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others need not apply.
If RISC and the BHA win the court case, there would be nothing to stop the Diocese proposing a Catholic free school, which could still have up to 50% of the places prioritised for children of Catholics. But at least 50% would be open to everyone else.
In fact there has never been anything to stop that compromise - which was proposed by Vince Cable - from being proposed all along. It is still far from ideal from RISC's viewpoint, but a lot better than the current plan.
It seems that neither Lord True nor the Diocese care for compromise.