Lobby the Governors

Update: please see list of Tomlinscote Governors




I received the following mail that was very well researched:-

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Could I suggest that the majority of efforts are aimed at lobbying and persuading the governors of Tomlinscote school, since the ultimate decision whether to go ahead with the SCC proposal rests with them – it cannot go ahead without the approval of the Tomlinscote governing body; this has been confirmed by Peter-John Wilkinson (see attached). Presumably, the majority of Parent & Teacher governors would be against the proposal already, so may be best to concentrate on Col. Steel and the Community governors. Unfortunately, the Tomlinscote website doesn’t seem to list the governors individually, but the school office should be able to supply a list of who’s who.

To this point, I would think that the most compelling argument would possibly be the inherent problems with effectively running an educational establishment across two non-adjacent sites; a quick google brings up a number of references in various Ofsted reports to support this, including:

· “The school's split sites are not the easiest of learning environments”

· “… constraints on the timetable due to the split site mean that continuity between staff who teach specific groups can be problematic.”

· “it has suffered a great deal from problems caused by split-site working … governors, headteacher and key staff have struggled hard to pull things together, but until recently the school has often been diverted from the main task of raising standards”

· “the severe financial constraints posed by running two widely spaced sites”

The issue has even been raised in Parliament:

· “Has the Secretary of State had a look at the letter from the headmaster of Tibshelf school explaining the difficulties of having to deal with the split school site in Bolsover and North East Derbyshire?”

I would also like to press for a meeting to be held between Tomlinscote governing body and Tomlinscote parents, other than the one planned by SCC, as we would then at least be able to gauge the feeling of the body as a whole and possibly see which governors are for or against the proposal. I have emailed Mrs Johnson-Walker and Col. Steel to request this; may be worth asking others to do so, too?

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From: Peter-John Wilkinson <peterjohn.wilkinson@surreycc.gov.uk>
To: REMOVED
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:49:44 +0000
Subject: RE: one more question!


REMOVED -

Yes, just so.

Peter-John

Peter-John Wilkinson
Acting Head of Schools & Learning

Tel no 020 8541 9907

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Peter-John,

Thanks for your prompt response, but just to clarify, when you write ‘rests equally’ with the council & the governing body, does that mean the decision would need agreement of both bodies to go ahead?

Thanks,

REMOVED

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From: Peter-John Wilkinson [mailto:peterjohn.wilkinson@surreycc.gov.uk]

Sent: 18 March 2011 11:47
To: REMOVED
Subject: Re: one more question!

Dear REMOVED,

The decision on the closure of Kings rests with Surrey County Council. The decision on the expansion of Tomlinscote rests equally with the County Council and with the Governing Body of Tomlinscote.

12 pupils started at Kings International last September.

I hope this is the information you need.

Best wishes

Peter-John

Peter-John Wilkinson
Acting Head of Schools & Learning

Tel no 020 8541 9907

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Dear Mr Wilkinson,

Thank you for your time on the phone yesterday evening, it was much appreciated.

One quick question that I’m hoping you can give me an authoritative answer to: at the end of the consultation process etc, whose final decision would it be as to whether the merger of the schools actually goes ahead?

Also (ok, make it two questions), your letter mentions the number of first-preferences that were submitted for Kings for the last academic year: please could you tell me the number of actual admissions, ie including those who didn’t list it as their first preference?

Many thanks,
REMOVED

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From: REMOVED
Sent: 15 March 2011 18:03
To: 'peterjohn.wilkinson@surreycc.gov.uk'
Subject: query
Importance: High

Dear Mr Wilkinson,

I have been advised to contact you to obtain some accurate information concerning a rumoured proposal for the merging or similar of Tomlinscote & Kings schools in Camberley.

I would appreciate it if you could urgently either email me further information, or contact me on REMOVED as it seems most worrying that as a parent of children that would be directly affected by such a proposal, the only information that seems available are rumours and speculation voiced by school children.

Thanks & regards,
REMOVED

Questions for the meeting - please post your suggestions.

I received the following mail from a parent who makes an excellent point:-

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I know we do not have much time but I feel that we should have a pre prepared list of questions for when we attend the meeting on 29th March.

My concern is that with so many passionate parents together the questions are going to be duplicated and asked without any structure. The downside to this is that we may run out of time and find that important points do not get covered.

Would it be possible to add a page to this website where parents and children can leave questions that they want answered. These can then be translated into a structured list of questions to be asked by possible few spokes people who maybe have experience in doing something similar from a work place environment.

I for example have the following burning questions/comments that I would like to be asked and have the feedback documented for all to see.

1. My year 11 daughter has been offered a place at both Tomlinscote 6th form and Farnborough 6th form. She has always maintained that she will accept the Tomlinscote place, however after the announcement this week, she has been onto the Farnborough website and accepted her place there. What will Tomlinscote do to ensure that they do not lose other able and committed students, which in turn will reduce the standard of Tomlinscote 6th form.

2. Currently Tomlinscote has a commitment to provide all new students with laptops for school and home use. All parents who choose Tomlinscote are made aware of the Financial commitment involved. How is this going to rolled out to current Kings students or will this be scrapped?

3. Uniform – Tomlinscote have always maintained a very strict Uniform policy and I have personally witnessed the way many Kings students dress when they turn up to school, how is this going to be addressed, just because you change a school name does not mean you change the culture.

4. I know of specific parents who chose not to go to Tomlinscote because of what they believe are Dictatorial rules. Without the backing of these parents how do Tomlinscote expect to change existing bad behaviours.

5. I am sure everyone agrees that Kings is failing and that something needs to be done but by merging a failing school with a high achieving school is surely going to produce a mediocre institution and who exactly does that benefit.

Lastly I would love to hear the views of Mr Ryles, funny how this has come to light since he announced his retirement, would he of ever allowed it to be considered under his Leadership, I am guessing the truthful answer to that is NO.

I and I am sure all parents have another 100 questions like this which is why I feel it is so important to plan how we are going to approach this during the meeting on 29th March.

Organise into groups.

I'd like people to volunteer to join specific groups.  I see the way that this would work is that I will give control of these email accounts to those who volunteer to be in the groups and they can explore the specific areas amongst themselves.  To participate in a group please contact tomlinscote.kings@gmail.com thanks!

I've set up 5 groups

"traffic" tomlinscote.kings.traffic@gmail.com - This group could collect information and explore the issue from a traffic perspective.

"legal" tomlinscote.kings.legal@gmail.com - This group could look at the issue from a legal angle.

"education" tomlinscote.kings.edu@gmail.com - This group could examine the educational impact of these proposals. It would be nice if someone could request the minutes of all the governors meetings that pertain to this issue over the last year from both Kings and Tomlinscote.  Parents have a right to view these minutes - otherwise the "freedom of information" act can be leveraged.

"economy" tomlinscote.kings.economy@gmail.com - This group could examine the impact on local business and lobby local companies to become involved.  I have given this blog address to all businesses on the two trading estates between the Frimley roundabout and Focus DIY - but if someone wanted to canvass the Frimley shops or phone the businesses that would be good.  Ironically Surrey CC have an office that will be affected on one of the estates!  If we could get businesses who would be prepared to go on the record against an increase in traffic this would be brilliant.

"lobby" tomlinscote.kings.lobby@gmail.com - This group could coordinate lobbying of relevant parties (excluding business), and possible set up example complains letters and a library of complaints to make it easier for people to construct a complaint letter of their own.

If you are prepared to have your names published I'll list who is in which group on the blog.

Petition a huge success!

Andrew Parker has kindly set up a petition on the Surrey CC website here:- http://petitions.surreycc.gov.uk/tomlinscotekings/ Please add you voice on the County website as Surrey County Council will ultimately decide on this.

900+ signatures - this gives Andrew Parker the right to attend and address the Council Meeting where this must be presented as it has over 100 signatures.

Surrey petitions

7. How many signatures do you need?
Petitions with 100 or more signatures can be presented to a meeting of the Cabinet, an individual Cabinet Member or a Committee. The Cabinet, Cabinet Member or Committee will consider the petition and decide whether to take the requested action. Petitions must be received at least 14 days before the meeting.

10. Can you attend the meeting when your petition is discussed?
The lead petitioner or spokesperson for the petitioners will be invited to attend the meeting. They may speak to the Cabinet, Cabinet Member or committee about the petition for up to three minutes. The petition may be referred without discussion to the next appropriate meeting for a report on what action should be taken, or a response may be made at the meeting. If the petition is referred to a future meeting, we will let you know when that meeting will be. If you are not a petition organiser you may still attend the meeting at which the petition is discussed, but you would not be able to speak.

A good start but this will be a long haul

Well I think we can see just how alarmed people are by this issue...

Stop Press: 8.08 hrs 18th March 2011: Eagle Radio are running the Tomlinscote Kings merger at the top of their news segments including bits of an interview with Tomlinscote Parent Lisa Wilson. It provided excellent bullet point coverage of the main issues.

Stop Press: 9.51 hrs 18th March 2011: Eagle Radio have put the issue on their website along with a transcript of Lisa Wilsons comments. See Eagle Radio Here

Stop Press: 16:27 hrs 18th March 2011: Interesting article in CamberleyPeople.

The local paper ran a front page on this yesterday (if people can provide details I'll update).

This site is generating plenty of traffic



In talking to a few parents I have heard the attitude "It will happen its a done deal" and "what can we do to stop it Surrey CC have made up their mind". My answer to this has been that however difficult it will be or how hard if we try and it goes ahead we will know that it was not due to lack of action on our part. Anyone who is not prepared to take some part such as signing the petition or writing a letter of complaint really has no right to ever complain about the outcome.

Lobby for access to initial information meeting presentation.

Someone called us yesterday with the excellent idea that we should go into the parental meetings....

Kings Monday 28th March / Tomlinscote Tuesday 29th March NOTE changed to Wednesday 30th March see note below.
5:00 pm - 6:45 pm for years 7,8,9
7:00 pm - 8:45 pm for years 10,11,12,13

.... with some idea of what would be presented.  As a consequence they phoned Nick Smith at Surrey County Council (Direct line 0208 541 8902) he can also be reached via (PA at 0208 541 0907) the PA route also works for his Boss Peter John Wilkinson the author of the original message.

We think this is an excellent idea that the presentation be sent to tomlinscote.kings@gmail.com so We can upload it here before the 28th March.  Understanding what will be presented will enable Kings and Tomlinscote parents to be able to prepare well informed questions.

Please lobby these people to provide the information.

At worst the information should be after the meeting for those who were unable to be present - We hope it does not take a "freedom of information" request (and the time lag that would entail)  to get it.

Update: Having seen the slides at the first presentation there is little of value in them - we need the real information.

Request for leaders.

Our interest is in bringing a core team of experts who would be able to discuss the issues with some authority as they possess specific specialisms that equip them to match the council professionals who will sit on the other side of the table.

i.e. (in no particular order)

a) someone in local politics
b) schools management
c) educationalist
d) school governor experience
e) traffic management professional
f) lawyer
g) local business leader
h) someone with experience of town planning

Suggestions sent to me ...
PR professional – for press/media releases (there is a mum in Ravenscote)
Financial professional – accountant…just incase SCC start quoting numbers and the like!
Environmental consultant – who can advise us on any issues but also see where SCC are coming from
Secretary/Chair – to run and coordinate…..this might be a job too big for one per person?

I feel confident that amongst the people with a vested interest in seeing a good solution to this that these people exist we just need them to volunteer and step forward. Please email the tomlinscote.kings@gmail.com email address and we will go from there, when we have talked and checked that you are prepared to be named we can publish this.

We are particularly interested in getting in touch with Andrew Parker so that he can talk to a couple of other people with specialist knowledge who may put their names forward - since Andrew now has the right to speak at council we would like him to be as supported and informed as possible.

Anyone who feels they wish to help in any way however please make yourself known. I'm sure there will be plenty to do in the coming months. I know that lots of us have been texting, emailing, leafleting, putting up posters, facebooking, calling, writing letters, calling the press and radio... lets get organised so we can avoid duplication of effort and share the load!

It would be nice if when we have established candidates we could vote for them either online or at a public meeting.

If we've missed some aspects here please email and we will update.

Travel Chaos?

Although Surrey County Council has not published full details yet... it seems poorly thought through and our understanding is that Years 7/8/9 will be based at the Kings campus and Years 10/11/12/13 being based at the Tominscote campus. The schools are 1.75 miles apart from each other.

We would be interested in your views as our understanding is that economic growth and CO2 emissions are two of the key transport policies of the Government.

We haven't looked at the impact of the year groups being sent to different campuses but our initial view is:
1. Parents with children having to travel to both sites will end up with issues in terms of dropping off children and this may affect work commitments and therefore effect economic growth;

2. The road network is severely congested at peak times between both Schools, any additional car traffic will significantly increase CO2 emissions and therefore work against the Government targets;

3. Children will have to travel further to get to school - again against sustainable transport policy;

4. Increased road safety risk;

5. Business along this corridor e.g. Siemens, the businesses along Frimley Road and Frimley Park Hospital are already significantly affected by traffic congestion. An additional 200-300 cars travelling each way between both schools will significantly add to delay;

6. Surrey County Council has no significant transport funds to improve accessibility by non car modes;

7. Our understanding is that the M3 Motorway corridor is in an air quality problem area - more children and cars walking under the M3 will add to the health issues.

In addition to this, many parents have younger children in local Primary Schools close to their local Secondary School. With the changes to the year groups this is going to create significant travel/safety issues.

Initial Letter to parents

This is the initial letter from Surrey County Council sent to parents of Kings and Tomlinscote.  Little is known about the details as yet but this will not just be a name change for Kings, one of the preferred proposals is that years 7/8/9 would be based at the Kings site and 10/11/12/13 at the Tomlinscote site.  This will have major traffic implications on all Frimley residents and businesses if this comes to pass.