with admissions to and planning for Kent primary schools in South Maidstone, as no one will know which schools children will be attending. I think this lack of co-ordination with KCC admissions is an appalling and retrograde development, demonstrating the worst contempt for established schools and I look forward to KCC challenging the establishment of the Tiger School, but with Government support for such establishments am doubtful of success .
There are already three primary schools in the area: Bell Wood Primary, Molehill Copse Primary and Oak Trees Community School. Academies Enterprise Trust is planning to take over these three schools and run them as academies, a group which already runs 17 academies, including three primaries, operating in the South East of England from Essex to the Isle of Wight. The proposed Tiger Free School is to be run by Future Schools Trust, which currently operates two secondary academies in Maidstone: Cornwallis and New Line Learning.
The September intake for Bell Wood is 43 (45 places available), for Molehill Copse 45, Oak Trees Community School is 22 (27 places available). Whilst the proposed Tiger School may of course draw children from different parts of Maidstone its main catchment is likely to be this area, and even before its planned intake increases to 60 children, it is evident that there are not sufficient children to make all three schools viable. Oak Trees is less than a third of a mile from the proposed Tiger Free School site. If the Tiger School is able to take in 60 children from 2013, it will certainly be able to take that number in 2012, if it can attract sufficient applications.
Two other matters of concern: Parents have been asked to fill in detailed application forms and may think they do not need to fill in a KCC Form. Until the school is finally approved, no places can be guaranteed, so any parents considering the Tiger Primary MUST cover themselves by filling in a KCC form. I suppose I should be astonished that this advice is not on the application form or information sent out to parents, but I am not. Secondly, no proposed rules for choosing which pupils are to be offered a place in the case that the school is oversubscribed with applications. However, one can see the nightmare of the school not knowing which accepted children are planning to come, leading to complicated appeals and reallocation processes going on into September. Of course one solution is for them to break the rules and offer places to everyone who applies!
One has to ask why the proposal has come forward. I believe there are two main reasons. Firstly, I sense that Future Schools Trust sees a business opportunity in South Maidstone, as both the existing schools have had serious difficulties and been placed in Special measures by OFSTED. However, the main government recipe is for such schools to be taken over by Academies, and I understand the Academies Enterprise Trust is looking to take on this role, another organisation, but one which appears to have considerable experience of managing primary schools. The three primary schools are already improving and so parents may well find the new set up works, which would increase the level of competition between the three schools. Secondly, future Schools Trust faces an embarrassing situation with regard to New Line Learning. The school was expecting just 101 new Year Seven students to turn up in September (over 10% of whom had been allocated by KCC- i.e. had not applied for the school). This means that the school, which has been built at a cost of over £25 million for an intake of 210 students, is over half empty. This is not financially viable, so what to do with all the empty spaces. I understand, but have not had it confirmed, that the proposal is to site the Tiger Free School in the new buildings, designed for secondary school students and shared with them. This would also help to ease the financial situation of the NLL. If this is the case I believe it is a radical new venture for an Academy, for even the all through ones (ages 4-19) which have come into being appear to have the two groups in separate locations.
On Radio Kent on Monday, the Chief Executive of Future Schools Trust considered there was no threat to the other two schools as there was expected to be significant new development in the area. Presumably this is the controversial proposal in the draft Maidstone town plan which still has many hurdles to pass if it is to come into being. In any case, for a large development, the Council is able to require the developers themselves to provide a new school removing the cost from the public purse. The CEO of Future Schools also acknowledged that the Trust has no primary expertise but would need to buy it in. Why go down this route when another academy group possessing that expertise is preparing to invest it in the two schools already operating in the area and meeting the capacity demand?
I think it inevitable we shall see such battles between groups of academies more often in the future, as they struggle to win in the great new education monopoly game. Sadly, as appears likely in this case, it may well be the children who are the victims, as some schools lose out in the battle for supremacy, without any overall planning. Planning used to be the responsibility of the local authorities, however inadequate may have been their level of success, but they are in no position to carry out such a function any more.
In this case, I think the Tiger School will win out, not necessarily for educational reasons, but simply because the first feature it lists is the facility of being "open from 7:30am to 6:00pm – of particular benefit to working parents"!
You can read here the full text of a heavily edited article that appeared in Kent on Sunday on 20th November.
You will find more information on my Free School page.