The Platinum Jubilee Street Party

Thanks to all the residents who followed the requests to remove parked cars on the day.

Preparations for this event starts weeks ago and finally today, 3. June 2022, we actually set up the street party around the Glasshouse Community Centre.

The road was closed at 12 noon so that the tables could be placed onto the road and prepared for the street party.

When we started the party, families immediately used the tables for our colouring in activity. Kids taking part got stickers and badges.

Kids colour in Queen Jubilee themed pictures

Chair of the Residents Association, Shamsia Foreman produced delicious cup cakes, which would have stood a definite chance to win the cake baking competition but people were very hungry and the cup cakes got eaten before they could get judged.

Shamsia’s delicious cup cakes.

In the hall people came to collect food and drink. All families took pictures in front of our Queen Elizabeth tapestry.

the hall at the beginning of the party, when food was still plentyful

Our local resident Neil, brought out his keyboard and played to entertain people. He even had a duet with a local child, learning the piano.

keen musicians, enjoying cakes and the arts, especially our face painter was very popular

Our competitions had excellent entries for crown, royal model and cake.

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Pictures shows our young crown winner, best royal model was won by Old Ford Primary Academy, best cake won by Musammat from Cephas Street.

Thank you to RA chair Shamsia Begum’s ‘Stop Smoking’ stall, which enhanced the Healthy living theme of our party.

Lets not forget our biggest fan, and most patriotic dog of the event

Not to forget a huge thank you to all the volunteers who really enjoyed the day.

thank you also to our sponsors, Tower Hamlets Council, Eden Project for high quality bunting and props.

THH resident training program

Starting on 4. December 2021 the Tower Hamlets Homes resident training program commences in local Tower Hamlets venues or online.

See the poster, which lists courses such as

• safeguarding
• First Aid session
• Food safety
• project management
• mental health first aid

and many other subjects, see list

East Park school proposal

On the site of the former Raine’s Foundation school, there is a plan to open up a free school. The partnership is between Fulham Boys School and the Raine’s Foundation Trust. See the new website advertising the scheme.

The proposed new secondary school, needs a good register of interest to be able to show that people are interested to send their kids there.

I would like to see some life back in the Raine’s building. Please support the proposed new school if you can.

St. George’s swimming pool

There is an ongoing petition to help St. George’s swimming pool re-open. St. George’s is used by many schools in the borough. My daughter won a gold medal there in the primary schools’ yearly borough championships, in which also Gatehouse pupils take part.

Please support this petition.

Primary school pupils at the yearly borough competitions

Raine’s closure approved

The School’s Adjudicator has now approved the closure of Raine’s Foundation school, which will close on 31. August 2020.

Just to say a thank you to all who worked and supported our children at the school.

The final determination mentions the possibility of a Free School at the Upper School site but it remains to be seen.

I suppose all our local children have been able to gain school places in other schools.

For all our local pupils who stay at home during the periof of social distancing, there are a lot of learning resources on the BBC Bitesize website to be found here.

TV interview about Raine’s school

A freelance journalist and camera operative will be outside of Raine’s Foundation school in Approach Road today at 2pm today, 22. Feb. 2020 and all our residents who want to participate in this filming are more than welcome to join us. The interviews will be shown on national TV.

Please let us know how the closure of Raine’s school affected you and your family.

Whilst we see a few school amalgamations taking place in the borough, Raine’s parents were hit especially hard as our closure and planned amalgamation does not go anyway as planned. We did not expect this to happen as we just had a brand-new building with refurbishments of the Lower school, costing £17 Million, money that will not be spent in the best interest of Council tax payers in the borough.

Our parents work locally and expected to send their kids to the local school and we all paid our council taxes, which were invested into that new school building. Instead the council wants to spent more money on building a new school in Wapping instead and close our school here in Bethnal Green.

Please come outside of Raine’s school this afternoon and voice your concerns.

Raine’s school closure can still be appealed

Whilst the Mayor of Tower Hamlets decided on 29. January 2020 that the Raine’s Foundation School should close, there is still a possibility of appeal but only through organisations such as the Raine’s Foundation, the Governors of the school or a Catholic Bishop.

I would recommend that all parents who wish to take that step, should immediately write to the Raine’s Foundation using the email address: trustee@rainesfoundation.org.uk

or write to the Governors of Raine’s School by sending and email to the governor services Runa.Basit@towerhamlets.gov.uk and send an impact statement for the purpose of giving evidence to show-case how the closure affects the families and the pupils.

Catholic pupils can ask their Bishop to appeal.

Please mark your email clearly for the purpose of appealing the closure notice of Raine’s Foundation school URGENT

Some children don’t feel safe in other schools and the move might affect parents’ employment also. There is also a matter of subjects offered by the partner school Oaklands, religious reasons are very important for many. Please state all reasons why the closure would affect you or your child or even the whole family.

Please do so within the next 2 weeks.

It seems to affect our pupils for a whole lifetime if the school is being closed for under-performing, financial problems and being unpopular.

Most pupils who will have to refer to their Secondary school and/or Sixth form education may have to explain to prospective employers why their school closed and it reflects badly upon anybody learning or working there that the council assumes the school to be too badly performing.

The reality is that Raine’s Sixth form performs(ed) better than other schools in the borough including Morpeth and Oaklands.

A-level performance for 2018 compares 27 different 6. Forms in Tower Hamlets.

Raine’s Founcation is in 9th. Place, before Morpeth and Oaklands is in 12th. Oaklands is below average whilst Raine’s is average.

The score is Raine’s – 0.05 v. Oaklands -.40

It does not make any sense to transfer 6th. Form pupils to Oaklands from Raine’s.

Falling applications should not hinder the education authority closing other much worst performing schools and send those pupils to Raine’s instead of closing Raine’s.

Whilst the Sixth Form performance for 2019 has dropped, it is still better than Oaklands, which has even further lowered their results. See statistics here.

I think that Raine’s Foundation is at the heart of our local community and our children like to attend there and learn according to their ability. The school has excellent teachers and the building is new and newly refurbished in the case of the Lower School building in Old Bethnal Green Road.

There are pupils at Raine’s who have achieved excellent Mock Exam results for this year’s forthcoming GCSE exams.

Raine’s is not the worst performing school in Tower Hamlets and I think the council should re-think their strategy. We are at the northern most point in Tower Hamlets and near Victoria Park. Attending the school helped my daughter to overcome Asthma, which she gotten whilst attending Bishop Challoner near the very busy Commercial Road.

Our children’s health is important to us. Popularity of a school in terms of attendance will bring in funds from the government but the council should also consider the location of a school and how that affects pupils’ health.

Looking at our local community if we also lose Raine’s school as a community hub, we will have very little left in terms of services provision in the area. The hospital already closed, the school to close also.

Whilst there are housing developments planned for the south of the borough, the closure of Raine’s will only excacerbate a loss of community services in our area to re-locate the emphasis of services towards the south of the borough.

There aren’t many schools in Tower Hamlets now who have excellent overall results. Underlying reasons like job insecurity, high pressures over housing problems, benefit changes towards Universal Credit also cause a lot of misery as well as reliance on food banks create a mix of problems that affects our children’s education.

The council should address the whole problem and not just rest on a financial and performance reasoning for one school.

SEND meeting

For all parents with SEND children in the area, there is going to be a meeting, organised by SEND Crisis Tower Hamlets*, together with the National Education Union on

19. November 2019, at Oaklands School, start 7pm.

Oaklands School, Old Bethnal Green Road, London E2 6PR.

The event will focus on the rights of the child with other invited speakers including Amanda Elliot from Hackney SEND Crisis (who have recently taken the govt to court), local councillors, the NEU joint general secretaries, and of course Tower Hamlets parents speaking about their experiences.

*Link to their Facebook group.

Worrying breakdown in local services

I have never experienced such a breakdown in local services.

1. Our local secondary school, Raine’s Foundation is under threat of closure
2. 2. Our local GP, The Mission Practise is refusing* to give patients appointments.
3. The London Chest Hospital was closed some time ago.

Taking this as a sign of a reduction in local services, residents should be concerned and make enquiries to their local Member of Parliament, their Councillor and perhaps the Mayor of Tower Hamlets as to why our local services are not delivering the care our community needs.

*Online appointments are normally not available and when ringing, one can not get an advance appointment all times.