Plus: How engineers installed phone signal on the London Underground, how many freemasons can you fit in a police force, and the house with a swimming pool in the middle of the living room.
Not a comment on the individual stories, as such, but rather to express how much I love this newsletter! I did not expect to be so invested in the school's drama this morning.
Fabulous story Jim. More coverage of the notorious patchy southwest trains reception please. When I called three to complain - they asked me for a postcode for the rail line outside Clapham and the Sussex trains side of Victoria station!
Schools: bluesky is fuming nowadays as this is understood to be a side effect on the war against immigration by successive governments, where no politicians seem to care, at all, about the future, or about the population of their country. This was a disaster waiting to happen, this is already a disaster opening to other disasters, and yet the narrative of "foreigners bad" is pushed over us, over me, to remind me that I am never going to be considered as a British human as the rest. Absolutely inhuman.
Schools- 1. Surely it's about housing costs preventing parent- aged people having children or moving out of London. It's got nothing to do with immigration. Sad article in news today suggests rise in abortions for similar reasons.
2. Secondary Archbishop Tenisons School at Oval in Lambeth closed 2 years ago, site sold for housing development
Something I've seen under discussed but seems essential to me in the conversation re school closures is that large parts of inner london are over-served with single sex and single sax faith schools. It's common to find three primary schools within 5 minutes of each other, catholic, CofE and non-affiliated - whereas you'd have more than enough students for 1-2 primaries but due to doctrinal nonsense these schools refuse to merge. We saw the same thing about 20 years ago when there was the move for Lambeth Academy to open due to a lack of school places in the north of the borough. Actually, there were loads of schools in the north of the borough but they were exclusively single sex and/or religiously affiliated.
A pedantic point but an important one nonetheless: there’s no such thing as ‘British freemasonary’ since the English and Scottish systems are substantially different
Yep, brutally competitive educational landscape that filters down to the teachers and is handed straight over to the kids in the form of excessive pressure, mainly so a school's optics look good.
We take a census every ten years, have birth data at a granular level and although immigration is trickier as there’s no location, overall it’s pretty easy to derive population estimates far in advance.
We have amazing data analysts in government, but they’re not linked up with relevant departments, let alone regional government. School funding should be able to be decided years ahead, instead we have this market-based approach that benefits no one.
The problem with that is that parents frequently move house before kids reach school age / move to secondary. People like to live in larger houses / near good schools. It makes it really difficult to predict school demand in London. Personally I moved from Westminster to Merton just after my first child who is still in school.
Having done the rounds of Greenwich and Bexley secondaries this autumn, I deduced that the amount of merch given out by a school was inversely correlated with how much I'd want to send my child there and the apparent quality of education and results. We now have a lot of plastic water bottles with the names of schools my kids will never set foot in.
link pls for the pool property, that sounds like something I'd enjoy (if I'd finally get around to grabbing the spare £10m from under the sofa cusions)
Off Brixton Hill, Lambeth spent the best part of 20 years securing a site and building an expansion for Sudbourne Primary, which was so oversubscribed living on the same street didn't guarantee a place. By the time it was completed the baby boom was over and the original site now sits empty...
So much strangeness about that house - not least the bedroom 'suites' with their own 'sitting' room which has a mini kitchen - sink, 2 ring hob and microwave. (Staff?) Then another 'guest bedroom' and almost self contained studio which don't appears to have showers (only basin and toilet)
And a huge house - 560m2 - with so little outside space.
Really interesting on how the signal in the tube works, have long wondered.
Always saddened whenever I hear of another school closure. The all boys secondary school near me is now accepting girls to try to mitigate the demographic graph of doom. Need to start looking at schools for my daughter soon - nervous about choosing one that might close before she reaches Year 6 (though no doubt I'll have moved to F**kinghamshire by then)
Not a comment on the individual stories, as such, but rather to express how much I love this newsletter! I did not expect to be so invested in the school's drama this morning.
Honestly, comments like that make the long days and late nights working on it worthwhile!
Fabulous story Jim. More coverage of the notorious patchy southwest trains reception please. When I called three to complain - they asked me for a postcode for the rail line outside Clapham and the Sussex trains side of Victoria station!
Schools: bluesky is fuming nowadays as this is understood to be a side effect on the war against immigration by successive governments, where no politicians seem to care, at all, about the future, or about the population of their country. This was a disaster waiting to happen, this is already a disaster opening to other disasters, and yet the narrative of "foreigners bad" is pushed over us, over me, to remind me that I am never going to be considered as a British human as the rest. Absolutely inhuman.
Schools- 1. Surely it's about housing costs preventing parent- aged people having children or moving out of London. It's got nothing to do with immigration. Sad article in news today suggests rise in abortions for similar reasons.
2. Secondary Archbishop Tenisons School at Oval in Lambeth closed 2 years ago, site sold for housing development
I'd imagine the pool is UV treated rather than chlorine. Feels like one of those houses from 'Through the Keyhole' back in the day.
Something I've seen under discussed but seems essential to me in the conversation re school closures is that large parts of inner london are over-served with single sex and single sax faith schools. It's common to find three primary schools within 5 minutes of each other, catholic, CofE and non-affiliated - whereas you'd have more than enough students for 1-2 primaries but due to doctrinal nonsense these schools refuse to merge. We saw the same thing about 20 years ago when there was the move for Lambeth Academy to open due to a lack of school places in the north of the borough. Actually, there were loads of schools in the north of the borough but they were exclusively single sex and/or religiously affiliated.
A pedantic point but an important one nonetheless: there’s no such thing as ‘British freemasonary’ since the English and Scottish systems are substantially different
Thanks - the more you learn!
Yep, brutally competitive educational landscape that filters down to the teachers and is handed straight over to the kids in the form of excessive pressure, mainly so a school's optics look good.
We take a census every ten years, have birth data at a granular level and although immigration is trickier as there’s no location, overall it’s pretty easy to derive population estimates far in advance.
We have amazing data analysts in government, but they’re not linked up with relevant departments, let alone regional government. School funding should be able to be decided years ahead, instead we have this market-based approach that benefits no one.
The problem with that is that parents frequently move house before kids reach school age / move to secondary. People like to live in larger houses / near good schools. It makes it really difficult to predict school demand in London. Personally I moved from Westminster to Merton just after my first child who is still in school.
Having done the rounds of Greenwich and Bexley secondaries this autumn, I deduced that the amount of merch given out by a school was inversely correlated with how much I'd want to send my child there and the apparent quality of education and results. We now have a lot of plastic water bottles with the names of schools my kids will never set foot in.
link pls for the pool property, that sounds like something I'd enjoy (if I'd finally get around to grabbing the spare £10m from under the sofa cusions)
Argh - my oversight. Sorry to all who received the email without it. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/170834804#/
All the charm of the lobby to an upmarket leisure centre.
Pedant of the week here!
But with regard to your story on freemasonry, your maths is based on an assumption.
As the policy is “membership of a hierarchical organisation” this will include Freemasonry and other organisations, such as Opus Dei.
The 300 people who have already declared their membership of such organisations might all be freemasons, but equally they might be members of others.
So, freemasonry’s influence might be even less than the 0.66% you estimate.
Fascinating to learn about all the effort required to install a mobile phone signal in the underground.
We often take these things for granted.
Still,.not sure if it's a good thing or not.
Off Brixton Hill, Lambeth spent the best part of 20 years securing a site and building an expansion for Sudbourne Primary, which was so oversubscribed living on the same street didn't guarantee a place. By the time it was completed the baby boom was over and the original site now sits empty...
So much strangeness about that house - not least the bedroom 'suites' with their own 'sitting' room which has a mini kitchen - sink, 2 ring hob and microwave. (Staff?) Then another 'guest bedroom' and almost self contained studio which don't appears to have showers (only basin and toilet)
And a huge house - 560m2 - with so little outside space.
I expect the proximity to Hampstead Heath goes some way towards making up for the lack of garden.
This is a great achievement that we would otherwise never here about 👍
"a swimming pool-sized fish tank"
Sorry, but is it a fish tank, or a swimming pool? I need to know.
£10m house, pool in the living room, but bikes are stashed on the terrace!
Didn't think to include a shed?
Really interesting on how the signal in the tube works, have long wondered.
Always saddened whenever I hear of another school closure. The all boys secondary school near me is now accepting girls to try to mitigate the demographic graph of doom. Need to start looking at schools for my daughter soon - nervous about choosing one that might close before she reaches Year 6 (though no doubt I'll have moved to F**kinghamshire by then)