Impact on School Admisisons
of Building Schools for the Future
Article published in Kent on Sunday
3 May 2009
Building Schools for the Future, the massive project to rebuild all secondary schools in the country has a serious downside, creating problems for children in parts of Kent by taking places out of schools that are already full.
The County Council is removing places from the two Gravesend grammar schools whilst at the same time arguing it needs more grammar school places in the west of the county, and is also cutting numbers at Chatham House.
At the oversubscribed Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, the intake is being reduced from 120 boys to 90 for September 2010 entry, in order to fit in the new buildings commissioned under BSF. That’s a total of over 200 places removed from a very popular school described as ‘Outstanding’ by OFSTED.. Those deprived of places will include the traditional intake from Herne Bay who will become disenfranchised as the other neighbouring grammar schools in Faversham and Canterbury are already oversubscribed. The rebuild of Herne Bay High School, already too small to cater for all children in the town, will offer just 12 additional places in each year.
Gravesend Grammar School, again heavily oversubscribed and turning boys away from local villages, reduces its intake from 150 boys to 140 for 2011 entry. The school has stated: “The governors see no evidence at all of demand for places decreasing. The school will be subject to a 100% rebuild, currently scheduled to start in 2010. This is being built on previous predictions that anticipate the school having 958 students (current capacity is 1040). Our current numbers will leave us with a serious accommodation shortfall”. Not surprising with nearly a hundred places being taken out of the school!
Under current Government legislation, grammar school places once removed cannot be replaced and the Conservative Party has indicated it is not minded to change this if elected to power at Westminster.
Three years ago, every Gravesham secondary school volunteered to reduce its intake, although most were already turning children away. They are now being rebuilt to the new capacity. Oversubscribed Thamesview School has reduced its intake from 210 to 150 children, denying access to children from villages for which it is the local school. Northfleet School for Girls, oversubscribed and popular with the local Sikh community for its single sex provision, reduced its intake from 200 to 175, heavily oversubscribed CofE St George’s School down from 210 to 180, with similar reductions in the other schools. It is reported that KCC officers are now trying to persuade Gravesham schools to admit additional children who have no school to go to although every local school is full.
How has this disgraceful situation come about? The driving force is ‘Building Schools for the Future’, the government scheme to replace all secondary schools with new buildings. In Gravesham, the plans have been drawn up using 2005 population forecasts that have seriously underestimated pupil numbers, a miscalculation known for some time. Indeed, at Gravesend Grammar the size of the new school is such that it is not even able to accommodate the new reduced intake, even if all the traditional intake at sixth form level from local non selective schools is barred. I have disputed the figures with KCC but was told it would be resolved through the local consortium, with grammar school boys sent to local non selective schools for some of their sixth form courses. I don’t know what grammar school parents and students will think of that.
How can the planners have got things so wrong? How can the County Council argue for more grammar school places across West Kent whilst simultaneously cutting them? A Cabinet Member has stated that all Kent children who have passed the eleven plus are entitled to a grammar school place. Simultaneously a building programme has been agreed that takes away that entitlement. Parents have the right to be very angry indeed, for what is happening in Gravesham and Thanet may well also be planned for other parts of the County.