URGENT: Southend Admissions

To the parents who expressed concern that Southend Admissions Team did not offer them a place at The Deanes:

If you applied for a place at the Deanes over the last few years and were not offered this choice, please contact Mr McKeown at the schhol as soon as possible. They need the facts and evidence so they can challenge Southend. This is a key element of the case to save the school. 

Also, if you know of somebody who this applies to, please ask them to get in touch.

Please email Mr McKeown at: dmckeown@thedeanes.essex.sch.uk.

Give your views

Another way we can get our message across is by giving our opinions of The Deanes School on the Ofsted Parent View website.

Log in and give your views now.

http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/

Castle Point Cabinet meeting 19th June

The Cabinet meeting last night proved a great success! We have an overwhelming amount of support which is invaluable. 

If you missed the meeting, you should soon be able to watch it online via this link:

http://www.castlepoint.public-i.tv/core/ 

Did you know?

As if any of you needed any more inspiration or ammunition for Thursday...

Did you know:

•   The Deanes School is the hub-site for the Castle Point and Rochford School Sport Partnership, we work with all schools, including the 51 Primary Schools. 

•   The Deanes Sports Centre – open to the community mainly evenings and weekends, have 3900 members, a mixture of coaching, lettings and a school holiday programme of sport which attracts approximately 130 children per day

•   The Deanes Tennis Club – affiliated to the LTA, 400 members

•   The Deanes School is an important part of The BATIC Trust, a charitable Trust made up of 16 local schools to create opportunities for young people (is the only Secondary School in it)

•   Is home to 22 community sports clubs including archery, trampolining and gymnastics

•   Achieved “good” with the capacity to be outstanding in the 2012 Ofsted inspection

•   The Deanes School has now broadened its specialism to include music, dance and drama

•   The School is a major employer for Castle Point, in excess of 300 people work either at the Deanes School or for The Deanes School related Projects, over 50 staff work in the School Sport and Community Sport alone

Preparation for 20th June

The first public meeting is less than a week away and we need to do our best to make sure we are prepared. 

While our emotional ties to the school are strong, and each of us could provide countless stories of what The Deanes School means to us, we have been advised that this is will not be our strongest approach. Tim Coulson is expecting a crowd emotional people that he can silence with facts and figures.

WE NEED TO PROVE HIM WRONG! 

It is vital therefore that we continue to work together and start to develop a list of appropriate, fact based questions to fire at Tim Coulson that he will have a hard time trying to answer!

We think it is important that we keep these questions off of Facebook/twitter/anything online. We do not want to provide the opposition with any chance to prepare for what is to come.

Can you please email your questions to deanesactiongroup@gmail.com so we can begin to compile a list. If you want to bounce ideas off of each other can we please ask you to do it through some form of private communication rather than the Facebook page. Also feel free to message Rebecca Howard or Chris Hurrell if you need any advice.

The Deanes School Website

Please remember to visit The Deanes School website for up to date information.

There is a survey from the school that they would really appreciate all parents to complete. Follow the link on the page below to complete the survey online. (There is also a  printable version should you prefer it.)

http://www.deanesschool.co.uk/page/?title=Future+of+Deanes&pid=166

A case for educational neglect?

We have reason to believe that parents of pupils in years 9, 10 & 11 may have reasonable grounds to sue Essex County Council's education department for educational neglect.

One of our parents has spoken with a solicitor who is a specialist in educational law who has informed us that if the currant years 9 and 10 who will be starting their GCSE's and options have a disrupted, disjointed and quite frankly unpleasant school experience, due to the actions of ECC, we have grounds to sue.

We are currently looking into the logistics of this but believe it could be a possibility.

For the time being, please show your support by emailing rosemary.prince@essex.gov.uk, stating your intentions to join with other parents of children at The Deanes School to sue ECC for educational neglect.

Let's keep going!

I have it on good authority that people are taking notice of what we are doing. It is all having an impact. So PLEASE keep it all going . The letters ,emails,blogs,twitter,Facebook,the press coverage. Every single one helps.

Message from the Governing Body

The governing body and the leadership of The Deanes School are currently preparing their response to the consultation document that is about to be issued by Essex County Council.  Our response will strongly repute the basic reason promoted by ECC to close the school.

Apart from anything else, the closure of the Deanes School would result in a reduced choice for local parents and there will be no guarantee that children in future years will have a school place in our local area.

The Governing Body and leadership of The Deanes School would urge you NOT to respond to the ECC consultation until you have read our case in conjunction with that of the County Council.  We will be issuing this early next week.

The Governing Body and leadership team would like to thank all our supporters for their encouragement and activity to date.  We would ask you to actively participate in the consultation.  We will be in touch soon with more details.

The Banners and Posters

Today Cllr Gooding met with the Head and members of the Governing Body.  The meeting was constructive and the school felt that they strongly voiced their views to the councillor.

On his way in, he was met with a sea of blue and yellow and posters and banners. The hard work of everyone yesterday did not go unnoticed.

However, the Daws Heath Road residents group have requested that the posters be removed as permission is needed to display signs in a public place.  They are correct in their assertion and tomorrow we will remove our posters from Daws Heath Road and place them around the school grounds.  It is vital that the local residents support our cause and we respect their request to take down the signs.

Important information for Primary School parents.

It is important to highlight to all parents of children currently attending local Primary School's that within the proposed plan from ECC their is NO guarantee that local children will receive a place at either Appleton or King John.

An official document provided by the ECC under the freedom of information act states that out of the current year 3 children at local primary schools who could go to The Deanes in 2016, only 30 will get into other local schools (Appleton & King John) if The Deanes were to close. The remainder would have to go to Basildon, Canvey or Southend schools.

It is vital that parents are aware of this fact and do not just assume that living within Castle Point will automatically provide them with a place at the other local schools. By the ECC's own admission, It does not.

Letter from The Deanes RE proposed school closure.

Please find below the letter that Mrs Atkinson emailed home to all parents this afternoon. 

5th June 2013

Dear Parents/Carers,

I know that many of you are upset and unsettled about the consultation. I must stress to you that this is an attempt by the Local Authority to save money and is not as a result of the school’s performance.    I insert a quote from a letter received from Mr Coulson regarding our exam results last year:

“I was delighted when the summer examination results were received to find schools like your own had ensured high quality outcomes for so many of their pupils”  and  “You must be very pleased with the rise in the results this summer”.

As a Good school with features that are Outstanding, we have delayed the decision to apply for ‘Academy Status’, due to a promise of a new build.  Following a full Governing Body meeting last night, it was agreed that we will now be exploring this option, which will include a Post 16 offer.  

Today, despite objections from two local secondary schools, I am pleased to inform you that we have been granted permission to broaden our sports specialism to now include Performing Arts.  The Office of the Schools Adjudicator has recognised that:

“The school has recently come together with two other special schools and a group of local secondary schools to form the Benfleet and Thundersley Inter-Cluster Trust. This group is working together for the benefit of the whole community and to celebrate success in performing arts.  The school has supplied letters of support for the performing arts vision and development from Glenwood Special School, Westwood Academy, the Castle Point and Rochford School Sport Partnership and the Benfleet and Thundersley Trust. “

This will provide further opportunities for any child with an interest in music, dance or drama, to pursuetheir talents.   We are now working in partnership with several performing art companies to enhance our offer further.

I would urge you as parents, to remain confident in our school and work with us in the fight to remain open.  There is no guarantee that you will be offered a place at the King John or Appleton School should you apply to move currently.  You could find that your child may have to move to Basildon or Canvey. The curriculum offer we provide will not change for your children.  Any child who has been offered a place for Year 7 inSeptember 2013, is expected to attend the school and we are looking forward to welcoming them on their induction days on Tuesday 25th & Wednesday 26th June.

The local authority is holding two meetings, the first is on Thursday 20th June at 7:30 p.m. in the Deanes Sports Hall and the second is on Wednesday 26th June at 7.30 p.m. to discuss their proposals and to allow parents the opportunity to ask questions and give their views.  It is essential that all parents/carers and community attend these meetings to show their support.  I would like to invite you to the school from 6 p.m. on those days tocelebrate the unique characteristics of the school and the high achievements of all its pupils in an exhibition of excellence.

Yours sincerely,

J.M.Atkinson (Mrs)

Headteacher

Deanes Action Group Blog

Hi all, 

Welcome to the ‘Deanes Action Group’ blog.

The aim of this blog is to create an outlet for relevant information to be passed on and shared with us all to help with our campaign to save The Deanes School from closure.

The plan is to use this as a way of documenting all of the facts and figures that we need to focus on during the consultation period which is due to start on Monday. There have been so many great ideas, relevant articles and facts posted onto the Facebook page, and we need to ensure that all of these are collected in one place so as to be used as effectively as possible. 

We therefore need your help. If you happen to come across any information that you consider to be relevant to our campaign, (links to relevant websites/newspaper articles/evidence to support our case etc.) please email it to us at deanesactiongroup@gmail.com so we can ensure that is shared with as many people as possible and is used in the most productive way. We have proven to be at our strongest when we work as a team and this is yet another opportunity to do just that. 

Keep an eye out for the most up to date posts. The blog is already linked to Twitter and we hope for it to be directly linked to the Facebook page by the end of the week.