Oakhill school meeting 14th June

I attended the meeting for the presentations but had to leave early to get to EBRRA’s committee meeting. I am indebted to Graham Goldspring, who stayed for the duration, for his observations. Links to the documents in pdf format can be found on the new page ‘Hospital site/school’ by clicking on the link at the head of this home page.

Relevant documents on the RBK website can be accessed here.

Re: Meeting at Dysart School, 14 June 2011 – two bids for running the new school

Points from the meeting;

• Construction of the school and health centre will start in August
• There will be provision for 24 special needs children – not 16 as previously indicated
• The Surbiton Health education Trust existence was new to me. I suspect that this was a driver for making the development a joint application
• This trust is bidding on the basis of providing a school which has NHS input to support the curriculum in diet and nutrition, health and well being, PE and sport with NHS advisers also working in the health centre.
• Both bidders, in a response to a question from me regarding annual funding and prioritising the funding of teaching resources, stated that the annual funding will be state provided and that the appointed head and senior staff would be responsible for the deployment of resources. No indication as to how much of the state funding would be used to pay a trust, which is a profit making concern, its fees for running the school.
• I was more in tune with the Surbiton Trust as they talked about how the school would be managed. Lilac were more concerned about stating their experience nationwide.
• The Surbiton trust talked about the school being self sustaining, with solar panels ( was this on the planning application does anyone know?) and forming the habit of walking or cycling to school as part of an eco-drive.
• The school would be a full community location to be used for sport and activities 7 days a week (yes – including Sundays) and every evening outside school teaching times. (So much for a noise assessment claiming there to be no impact on the local community).
• I still fail to see why there is a need to pay money to hand over the management of the school to a trust instead of it being LA led.

I attach some documents relating to the two bids. I also found the ‘response booklet’ pdf file on the RBK website. It invites people to come to the meeting on 14 June.

Our house did not have this leaflet delivered to us. Did anyone else receive it?

Maybe readers should enquire as to whether these have been distributed or is this ‘consultation’ again relying on people finding it by accident online or if they happen to go to the library?

The closing date for comments is 15 July.