LOCAL BULLETIN

£30 million faith school to open in Battersea in 2012
A £30 MILLION Catholic school is to open in Battersea, fuelling hopes that will set a new direction in the chequered history of Catholic education in Wandsworth and create better choice for parents, writes Chloe Lambert.
The south-west London comprehensive school, due to open in 2012, will merge John Paul II School, Southfields, and Salesian College, Battersea. A new trust, formed by the Salesians of Don Bosco and Southwark archdiocese, will run the school with Wandsworth Council, funding it through the “building schools for the future” project.
But local parents have questioned how a successful school could be formed by amalgamating two with reputations for bad behaviour and poor results. John Paul II has just been pulled out of special measures after Ofsted threatened to close it. Representatives from the council and archdiocese said that they would continue to raise standards at both schools in the years before the amalgamation.