This petition will be given to our MP, Susan Kramer. It will register your desire to see our local authority offer excellence in our State Secondary School. A great State Secondary School should be the strong heartbeat of any local community. It should provide excellence not only academically but also in sport and in the arts. It should be the social focus of the area. Richmond Borough provides excellent primary schools and we want this high standard of teaching and learning to continue into secondary education. We want to support the state system but only if it provides the best quality of learning available to our children. There are deep-rooted misgivings about the standards of behaviour of some pupils attending the local secondary school. Promises have been made in the past to parents about changes to the school but they have been seriously let down. The trust has gone. The parents of the local community now wish to take the educational development of their children into their own hands. The situation where two thirds of the children attending the local school come from outside the borough cannot continue. Schools should be placed at the heart of our community. The community of Barnes, Mortlake and East Sheen deserve a first class secondary state school - as any community does. The education of our children is the most important decision any of us will make. Based on the strength and support of our primary schools it should be easy to develop that strong relationship between teachers and parents into the comprehensive system and give Barnes, Mortlake and East Sheen a secondary school of which we can all be proud.