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Hands up all those who want a school in the south of the borough… |
Done your homework? It’s the south that needs a new school
The proposal for a new secondary school in Swiss Cottage is a rush job that doesn’t make sense, writes Frank Dobson
THE council must reconsider its plans to locate Camden’s new secondary school at Swiss Cottage. The Liberal Democrat and Tory coalition running the council owe it to all of us to come up with proposals that will benefit Camden’s children, parents and teachers.
The present proposal is a rush job that doesn’t make sense or meet local needs.
The council claim they have had to rush because they have to meet a fixed deadline and that any delay will also hold up vital investment in other Camden schools.
They also claimed that the government wouldn’t accept two four-form entry schools instead of one larger school and that an academy would get more money from the government.
Before Christmas, I took a delegation of local parents to meet the education secretary Ed Balls who told us that not one of the council’s claims are true. He has just confirmed this in writing. So there is nothing to stop the council having a serious rethink about the right place for a new school.
Camden has nine secondary schools. Everybody agrees it needs a tenth and that the government’s Building Schools for the Future fund presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The area south of Euston Road doesn’t have a secondary school, but it already houses one-tenth of Camden’s children.
The council disputed this, but then had to concede that the figures I put forward were accurate.
Camden officials later had to admit that the three electoral wards south of Euston Road were likely to be the only ones in Camden with a net inflow of population and an increase in births.
So the need remains and grows.
Logic suggests that is where the new school should be.
It’s only fair that children going to the primary schools in the area should be able to go to a local secondary school.
At present they are used to make up the numbers at over a dozen different schools.
The main reason the council picked the Swiss Cottage site is that they own it. Like property developers they saw the land there as “ripe for redevelopment”.
To them the two special schools and Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children that occupy the site at present were just a nuisance.
They are still scrabbling around trying to relocate Frank Barnes School, or parts of it, somewhere else – whatever the harm that could do to this hugely successful school and its pupils.
And the Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children isn’t the only school the council’s botched “strategy” could harm.
Knowing that a school at Swiss Cottage won’t do anything for the children in the south of the borough, the council’s next afterthought is to propose adding a further two forms of entry at South Camden Community School whose site is cramped with the pupils who are there already. Neither parents nor teachers were consulted about this proposal.
Of course, there is nothing new about lack of consultation by the council. They came to a behind-the-scenes deal to get University College London to sponsor an academy.
Local parents have objected but were told it was a done deal. UCL weren’t prepared to face parents until after the deal was done on the grounds that they were “keeping UCL out of Camden politics”.
For years I have urged more UCL involvement with local schools. If they want a special link with one, why not South Camden Community School which is within walking distance of UCL who were happy enough for the college’s sports hall to be built on South Camden School’s already limited open space?
UCL claim their principal reason for supporting an academy is to assist a “deprived neighbourhood”. That certainly applies to Somers Town and King’s Cross. It certainly doesn’t apply to Swiss Cottage.
If the council fail the children and parents in the south of the borough, they will have no one to blame but themselves. The government is providing the funds for a new school.
The Education Secretary has made clear that the council will be allowed more time if more time is needed and that nothing need hold up investment in the existing schools. He also said he is prepared to consider a four-form entry school.
Now I have cleared that up for them, it’s down to Camden Council and Camden Council alone if they go ahead at Swiss Cottage.
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