CAM Publicity and Awareness Team - Update.

Over the past two days members of the CAM team have been targeting feeder schools as well as Tomlinscote and Kings with information regarding the implications of the merger on our children, their education and the general quality of life.

CAM noticed that there was no information available for families with younger children, and because of the lack of information those families may feel that their opinion will not count when the consultation period starts. The purpose of the leaflet was to highlight how this proposal will affect your choice and possibly the education provision and to encourage people to get involved with the campaign in some way.

With Tomlinscote and Kings it was not possible to hand out leaflets to parents as it had been at the junior schools so we handed leaflets to every child leaving the schools on Wednesday. If your child did not bring home a leaflet, they can be seen here.

Please make the effort to attend the Public Meeting that has been arranged for Tues 10th May at 7:30pm at Lakeside Country Club. We would appreciate you confirming your attendance via the Facebook Invite or directly to the “I Support CAM” Link on this page. The meeting will give us the opportunity to analyse the Consultation Document, ask questions, have discussions and also to look at ways that we can fight the proposal together. We have been told time and time again that this is not a done deal and that if we work together we will keep Kings and Tomlinscote operating as separate schools on separate sites giving Surrey Heath the educational choices they need and deserve.

Claire

New Tomlinscote Head

Ian Hylan (currently at Cox Green) is to be the new head of Tomlinscote.

School Policies from his current school

Kings : Parent's Information Evening & Principal's Open Door

Please be advised that Parents' Information Evening will be taking place at Kings International College on Wednesday 4th May in the Conference Room at 7pm.

This will be followed by Principal's Open Door on Monday 9th May from 4pm - 6pm.

School bus cuts to Grove.

I blogged a while back about the likely promises to provide transport should be taken with a pinch of salt.

"School Bus promises you can bet these will be hollow."

An article on Surrey Residents site is worth a read as it is evidence of this in action ...

"Grove School bus for Military Families faces cuts"

Conservative campaign literature mentions merger.

Leaflet Campaign

We are handing out the following leaflets to schools Junior and Senior if you can help please email.

louise.nicholas8@btinternet.com

and..

C.A.M. Public Meeting - May 10th 7.30 Lakeside Country Club

CAM facebook page

Facebook Page for event.

C.A.M. Public Meeting - Working Together to Remain Separate

Time	Tuesday, May 10 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location	Lakeside Country Club Frimley Green
Created By	C.A.M. ( Campaign Against Merger )
More Info	Public Meeting for Parents and Other interested parties who are against the proposed merger of Tomlinscote & Kings. (Strictly Over 18's Only) Doors Open 6:30pm, Presentation 7:30pm Bar will be open before and after presentation. There will be opportunities to review information, share concerns, ask questions and work together to ensure our voices are heard.

Public Meeting for Parents and Other interested parties who are against the proposed merger of Tomlinscote & Kings. (Strictly Over 18's Only)

CAM is currently a group consisting mainly of Kings and Tomlinscote parents who have come together to oppose the proposed merger so as to retain educational choice and quality education for parents and students in Surrey Heath.

We have organised this meeting so we can explain our reasons for opposing the merger, discuss our ideas for challenging the merger, broaden our membership and to ask for help and support for our efforts.

After a relatively short presentation we hope that time can be spent discussing peoples concerns and suggestions for fighting the merger.

We envisage the presentation starting at 7.30pm and lasting 30 to 40 minutes, being followed by an interactive session where attendees views and ideas can be shared.  Timing for this aspect is flexible, but we would like to finish so there is time for less formal discussions at the bar.

If you are concerned about this merger proposal please attend if you can. We need your help and support.

"Credit Crunch" makes current figures "difficult to interpret"

It looks like Surrey County Council have updated their website and added info regarding the merger proposal to:

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/The+future+of+Tomlinscote+School+and+Kings+International+College?opendocument

Reading Surrey's School Organisation Plan 2009-2018 and it looks like they admit that their projections may not be accurate due to the economic circumstances we are under...

 http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Surrey%27s+School+Organisation+Plan+2009-2018?opendocument

 
The Impact of the “Credit Crunch”
4.24 At the time of writing (March 2009) there is a general consensus that the UK is
    experiencing a recession. The situation is, however, extremely unsettled and
   therefore very difficult to interpret for longer term planning purposes.
4.25 The Council has already aware that economic instability is likely to lead to a
    reduced use of independent education and therefore an increased call for places in
   local state schools. This appears likely to have the greatest impact where – as with
    Surrey – the use of independent education is relatively high.
4.26 Surrey has only limited precedents on which to base its estimates of the
    consequences of these events. More recent periods of economic difficulties (1979-
   82, 1989-1992, 1999-2001) have been both different from each other and would
  appear to be more limited in scale than current events.
4.27 At this time, two consequences seem probable:-
• • 
4.28
in the shorter term, pressure on school places will increase and the number of
vacancies will decline;
In the middle run, new home building will decline and the tendency of local
births to rise will thus reduce.
Surrey cannot easily quantify these effects, and the subsequent estimates in this
document do not factor it in. This year’s admission applications will give an
important early indicator of the degree of change we can expect. It appears
inevitable that the first and main effect will be to increase pressure on places at
both primary and secondary where this is already being felt.

So according to their own report, the impact of increased pressure for places is stronger than the reduction due to slower house builds. So their case regarding reduced PAN affect Kings seem to be weak.

Pages 65 to 70 of the document discuss the plan for Surrey Heath. There seems to be an increase in spare spaces in 2012 (141) and 2013 (120) but the figures return to normal levels in 2014 (79). So we really need to understand how the figures in the  pre-consultation presentations are so different to their long term plan and what factors are affecting those figures......

They claim to have updated forecasts, it is not clear what they mean by 'latest forecast' and when they were updated.

Please note that this page refers to the initial School Organisation Plan first published in Spring 2009. This document has now been updated to reflect the latest forecasts and can be found here.

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Education+Organisation+Plan+2010-2019?opendocument