Pupil Premium

I’ve found out the latest amounts of Pupil Premium to be given to East Dulwich schools for the financial year 2013/2014:

East Dulwich ward    
Goodrich Community Primary School 302 £271,800
Goose Green Primary School 144 £129,600
Heber Primary School 74 £66,600
St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School 45 £40,500
Ward total 565 £508,500

 This is a sharp rise from 2012/2013 where for example Goose Green will have been given £89,000.

For other schools please see:

https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=AA7D26429DB5E9EF!117&cid=aa7d26429db5e9ef&app=Excel

 

Crown House – decision point

Crown House at 41-43 East Dulwich Road is the ex. Dulwich Area Housing office.

It’s had a busy last six month seeing two planning applications to its reuse.

Nursery

The first was a planning application for new 100+ nursery places, refused by Southwark Council but the applicant has appealed it.
It was refused as the council doesn’t think they’ve made enough efforts to lease it as office spaces protecting local employment. And also no transport report.

The former is odd as with such huge shortages of nursery places many are unable to go back to work. So this feels a red herring or ill conceived. The transport issues interesting. When the council applied next door it was allowed BUT on the condition they produce a Travel Plan.

So I’ve contacted the planning inspector who will decide the appeal supporting the application IF a condition for a Travel Plan is added.
The planning inspector can be contacted at: teamp3@pins.gsi.gov.uk reference APP/A5840/A/12/2185756/NWF

What’s very frustrating is that until May 2012 this planning application would have been decided by the Dulwich Community Council but instead council officers miles away made the decision – wrongly in my mind.

Shop

The second is a planning application for a new medium sized shop. We’re not keen on this as if it’s a successful shop sucking retail vitality out of Lordship Lane. Also the needs more school and nursery places and this site on it’s own could provide much needed nursery places.

If you have a view on this planning application tell council officials – planning.applications@southwark.gov.uk – and copy me.

New Harris Primary School Application

I’m delighted to announce that we’ve achieved sufficient support for the Harris Federation to apply for a new two form entry East Dulwich Primary School.

The application has been submitted today.

Huge thanks to the 160 local families who  lent their support for this project. We needed 80 families with children due to start reception classes in 2014 or 2015 and 94 families have stepped forward. Another 66 supporters with younger children has also come forward.

We’ve also received lots of other support from residents. Thank you.

I’d also like to publicly say thank you to the Harris people who agreed to support our request on them to create a new school. Without finding such a successful and willing provider many local children would soon be stuck for reception places.

But the shortage of reception places by 2016 will reach 75-90 in Dulwich and up to another 135 for Peckham Rye and Nunhead areas.

It looks increasingly likely that the Judith Kerr Bilingual Primary school offering 50 places will be located in East Dulwich. But it isn’t certain and both schools together would still leave a gap of 115 reception places.

So we’re still campaigning for more support – so we can try and get the new East Dulwich Harris Primary school increased to three form entry (90 pupils).

If we obtain even further support we’ll ask Harris to apply for a second primary school in January 2014 to ensure all children have great schools places near to where they live.

If you support new primary schools in our area – please email me your support ASAP.

 

 

New East Dulwich Primary School – latest

photoMany thanks to everyone who stopped to talk on Saturday at our street stall outside the Coop on Lordship Lane about our campaign for a new Primary school/s in the area.

It was surprisingly cold after five hours  but everyone helping kept going  10am-3pm.

We’ve now reach 62 supporters for a new school out of the 80 we need with children who are 1 or 2 years old. So we’re just over 3/4 of the way. We’ve also found 49 other supporters with younger children. So it’s clear that huge demand for a new local school.

But we need to press on. If you agree we need a new Primary school please email me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk with your name, child’s DOB and home post code.

If you can help with this campaign by delivering leaflets, visiting nursery groups or in any other way please do get in touch.

New Primary Schools for SE22

After a number of years of forecasters telling us we have a temporary baby boom they are now clear we have a permanent problem – we need more school places on a permanent basis.

At full Council Assembly 25 January I had it confirm that in the Dulwich area ongoing we need an extra 60-75 reception places every year from 2015.

At Council Cabinet 20 November it was confirmed by council officials that the shortage is bigger and increased to 75-90 reception place per year by 2016 for the Dulwich area and for the Nunhead and Peckham Rye area  90  to 135 reception places per year by 2016. The two demand equate to 2 or 3 brand news schools.

The council’s plan is to ask the government for £40-50m to expand existing schools. But the ideal size of primary schools is two or three form entry. If you go above that size the adults and children don’t know each other – it becomes anonymous. Not an experience we’d wish for our youngest.

We know a German/English school are interested in being created in Southwark or Lambeth – we need more certaintythan this.

So the East Dulwich ward councillors have been in conversations with the Harris Federation. They have a clear track record of excellence at creating new schools that Ofsted rate as outstanding. None of our local Primary schools are rated outstanding yet. After many points and perspectives being shared they have agreed to apply for a new school serving the Dulwich area. But I’m hoping to persuade them to apply for a second primary school serving the east Dulwich/Peckham Rye/Nunhead area which has little school provision.

Our converaations have involved Sir Robin Bosher the ex. head of Fairlawn rated outstanding and Sir Dan Moyniham the chief executive of the Harris Federation. We’ve met him before when visiting Harris schools in East Dulwich.

We hope to persuade other local politicians for this to be cross-party and have contacted College, Nunhead, Peckham Rye and Village ward councillors.

The obvious site is a fifth of the Dulwich Hospital. To make that happen will take a lot of influence by the Department of Education over the Department of Health. I’d be amazed if Lord Harris and his team couldn’t make that happen.

To make a new school in Dulwich or the Peckham Rye/Nunhead area we need to find 80 children for each school who would attend ie. 1 and 2 year old children now. The families need to say that they would like their children to attend a new Harris Federation Primary school. It doesn’t commit them but it does indicate they’d like to attend if built and if we succeed will ensure we have enough extra  excellent places locally for all our children.

Please see attached form Harris have kindly produced.

12414_HF_HarrisEastDulwichFreeSchool_Leaflet_LowRes

Please complete the last page and post it OR email me your name, your child’s date of birth, your postcode. Or just email me if you’d like to be kept in touch with this campaign.

Together we can make this happen.

Wokingham?

Family Investments have produced a study of the UK and how family friendly each area is – STUDY.

It says Wokingham is the most family friendly area – mostly it appears from Primary School results. It takes a whole postcode area e.g. SE22.

For SE22 it suggests we’re a little above the national average for crime but below for anti social activities. Above the average birth rate and levels of obtainment at Key Stage 2 but not stunningly above the average. We have a Leisure Centre but surprisingly no green flags in SE22.

Online schooling

Where the USA treads the UK often follows. But this is one trend I’m not convinced by.

The USA has seen a 30% increase in online schooling for children. Last year 250,000 children were fully taught online. Some states have reduced education budgets so much classes above 30 have become common and parents are choosing online schooling to avoid this.

But what are children missing. A generation not socialised. Without Physical Education. Counter intuitively the better of are making this choice. Not so rich for private education but sufficient family income to have some one at home supervising the online learning.

And their was me thinking ‘free’ schools were challenging!

Unhealthy school meals?

Local authorities are responsible for enforcing food hygiene legislation and the obligation to comply rests with the food business operator. For schools that’s the Head Teacher but if that school is run by the local authority, ultimately, the Cabinet member would be responsible. So in Southwark that’s Labour Councillor Catherine Macdonald. She has been clear for that she will provide “free healthy school meals”.
 
Food safety enforcement officers are meant to carry out routine hygiene inspections of school kitchens. The frequency of inspections is based on the risk rating given at the time of the last inspection. Most schools have a hygiene inspection frequency of 18 months. Food establishments are rated on a star rating of nought to five stars with five stars being the best. But the resources dedicated to food hygiene is a political decision and I think they’re now too little.
 
Sadly Southwark Labour drastically cut the number of inspections they want council officials to undertake.
 
If we look at Southwark School hygiene ratings we find schools appear to be less than perfect. In East Dulwich Goodrich has 2/5 stars, St.Anthony’s schools 3/5 stars and Goose & Heber Schools 4/5 stars. Ironically Goodrich School with the worst star raiting hasn’t been inspected for over two years.
 
To compound things Southwark have placed data in two different places online so parents would be incredibly hard pressed to work out their children;s school star rating. To make it worse some older inspection results are placed in own area. Some newer inspections of the same school are placed elsewhere. And some inspections are listed on both. Majority of inspections are listed under the name of the contractor providing the catering rather than the school name. No other London borough is so obtuse with how it publishes this data – and I’ve looked widely.
 
Overall this is how Southwark compares to Lambeth:
Borough no. of schools no. of schools with ratings 1 star 2 stars 3 stars 4 stars 5 stars average rating average days since last inspection
Lambeth 99 88 0 0 11 33 40 4.35 513
Southwark 108 101 1 13 18 34 35 3.88 560
If you think this is rubbish tell catherine.macdonald@southwark.gov.uk and copy me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk nag your children’s school governors and head asking for improvements.
 
To see a list of all Southwark Schools:
 
 
 
 

St.Olave’s & St.Saviour’s Sports Grounds

This outstanding school, located adjacent to the Bricklayer’s Arms roundabout, has sports grounds in East Dulwich – just of off Greendale north of the East Dulwich railway line.

What a long way to come to play sports. It also means their grounds are not available to other local schools or as open green space to residents.

I’m sure the school would rather not have the extra expense of a remote playing fields and the dislocation and expense of busing pupils all that way – it must really eat into the school timetable.

How to fix this.

The Bricklayers Arm Roundabout is an urban disaster created when local politicians thought Southwark was only good to be knocked about to make space for urban motorways. When writing the 2010 Lib Dem manifesto we said this roundabout needed to be replaced with something that serves Southwark residents not just car commuters from Kent.

Replacing the Bricklayers Arms roudnabout with traffic lights, removing the ridiculous flyover could mean St.Olav’s & St.Saviours having local playing field added onto the school site.

The then surplus playing field in East Dulwich could become part of a local park and create green space for local East Dulwich primary schools such as Goose green school to have near direct access to green space.

What do you think?

Water is Cool

A campaign to encourage ready access to water throughout te school day has been going for over a dozen years – Water is Cool in School campaign.

Hydrated pupils are healthier, do better in school from better attainment and behaviour. That’s typically 6-8 glasses a day.

In March 2007 I asked a formal question about how many schools in Southwark adhere to ready water access. I was told 54% of schools provide this measured via the Healthy School Status.

What’s the current rate?

I’ll find out.