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School decisions beg so many questions
• I WAS surprised that there were no letters in response to Councillor Adrian Oliver’s defence of the Frank Barnes School (Letters, January 3) because the decisions being made beg so many questions about school strategies such as squeezing the Frank Barnes school onto a shared site, the building of an academy school on the Swiss Cottage site and the admissions policies and allocation of places in secondary schools.
First. What is Camden’s education strategy? For at least 20 years families in the south of the borough have been asking for a secondary school south of the Euston Road because the many local primary schools have no natural feed into a secondary school.
Each year children face competition and disappointment as they are dispersed to distant schools.
Second. Why is Camden proposing to move an established school? Presumably to make way for the proposed academy school. It cannot be right that precious council land should be handed to a consortium for £2 million which then has control of a school built with taxpayer’s money.
Haverstock is a handsome new building but it is also a money-making project for whoever runs it now.
Third. Is the Swiss Cottage site the right place for a secondary school? It is very close to Quintin Kynaston.
True, because of boundary anomalies, QK is in Westminster but if the principle of local schools for local children means anything the admissions policy should be resolvable.
May the consultation and debate be meaningful and may common sense prevail.
Roz Cullinan
Camden Mews, NW1
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