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Decision delayed on whether St John's School must axe 25 staff
A DECISION has been delayed on whether a Northwood Hills school must axe 25 staff and reduce pupil numbers, after breaching the conditions of a planning agreement.
St John's School was granted permission in 2001 to build a single-storey extension for an extra classroom and assembly area with a library for the prep school, together with a first-aid room and staff toilet.
As part of the agreement, the school, in Potter Street Hill, which sits on the Green Belt, was told it could accommodate a maximum of 350 students and 40 full time staff.
But for at least five years, there have been 405 children and 65 staff, prompting complaints from residents about the detrimental effect on traffic flow in the area, as well as 'intensifying' use of the Green Belt land.
The fee-paying school - which is part of the Merchant Taylors' education trust - applied for retrospective planning permission last May, as reported in the Gazette, after headmaster Chris Kelly claimed he was unaware of the restriction.
But councillors criticised the school for 'making a mockery of the planning application process' and rejected the application.
St John's appealed against the decision, with a date yet to be set for the hearing.
However, the school has also submitted a slightly-amended plan to Hillingdon Council for retrospective planning permission.
The application was due to be heard on Tuesday (22), however this has now been delayed after a 'large influx of correspondence' and numerous petitions were submitted at the last minute.
A special meeting on the matter will take place on March 9.
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Often supermarkets that want build on it buy land in order to expand within a community come to an agreement with the local council with regard to funding and improving local services such as health facilities and state schools. As this appears to be a private school (effectively a private company) perhaps it might do the same and fund / supplement service for the local state school. For example a select number of state school pupils which struggle with maths and English might be given acess/passes to the new library on wednesfay nights and this would including a tutored workshop.
*Corrections... Often supermarkets that want to *buy land and build on it... ..........supplement a* service for the local state school.... ....school pupils that struggle with *Maths and *English might be given access*/passes to the new library on *Wedneday *evenings and this would include an on site teacher to provide tuition workshops.
Bet no one can guess which of those two subjects I struggled with. If only I had not struggled so early on I might have been a teacher, layer, or writer.
As far as i am concerned, this sort of correction has been long overdue. My son has thankfully now left St Johns. However for all of the years he was there, I certainly felt that Mr Kelly was increasing the class sizes and cutting back on the quality of teaching to make more money for themselves. My sons work was never even marked on many occasions and Mr Kelly always made you feel that even though you were paying for education, the responsibilty was the parents to educate the kids at home. Conveniently the school always communicated messages via the kids. So there was always confusion amongst the parents and frustration. If the school ever wanted money, which it did almost weekly, then there would be a nice formal letter or email so that parents could not claimed to be misinformed about how much the School wanted. On one occasion my son said i had to donate a minimum of £20. Like some sort of tax as otherwise his teachers would treat him unfairly in class. So to summarise. Serves the school right for milking parents for cash and good that they have been bought down a few pegs. Lastly, in any commercial organisation, Mr Kelly would have been sacked for such an oversight. They pushed the class sizes to max the cash and got caught out. Now they will try and recover the money by charging the existing pupils even more than they already do. I thank god that my son is out if that place.