Staff at Fort Pitt Grammar School were only told just before Christmas that their headteacher, Julia Bell, was taking up the role of Executive Headteacher for the Trusts overseeing the transition, and being replaced by Carol Winn who took up post as headteacher of Fort Pitt in January. 

It is becoming difficult to keep count of all the schools involved in this monopoly game, as  more and more, some struggling, are taken over by expansive Academy Trusts. In Medway alone, there are now three multiple school Trusts operating: Fort Pitt; Sir Joseph Williamson's (Federated with Hundred of Hoo); and the Kemnal Manor Academy Trust, which has twelve schools, stretching from Hampshire to Essex, including Rainham School for Girls and  in Kent, Orchards Academy in Swanley and Pluckley and Smarden Primary Schools. Also Rochester Grammar operates a less formal partnership with St John Fisher Catholic School, sharing an Executive  Headteacher. 

Meanwhile, Fort Pitt is consulting on radical changes for its oversubscription criteria which may produce significant changes in the map of Medway grammar school admissions. It is proposing for 2013 entry to move away from its traditional simple catchment of girls living nearest to the school (after admitting girls in public care and elder sisters).  It plans to shift to a pattern of girls living within two miles of the school  (again, after admitting girls in public care and sisters), and then girls living in the named parishes of: Allhallows; Cliffe and Cliffe Woods; Cooling; Cuxton; Frindsbury Extra; Halling; High Halstow; Hoo St Werburgh; St James, Isle of Grain; St Mary Hoo; and Stoke. There appears no provision for any other girls, so one assumes that the school, having reduced its planned admission number from 180 to 120 in recent years, anticipates it will fill from these areas using distance as the final measure. You will find the full proposal here.   

In one sense, this can be regarded as a rational move for, since Hoo was accepted into the selective provision of Medway a few years ago,  some children on the Hoo Peninsula have lost out on grammar school places, being ineligible on distance grounds for their nearest grammar schools: Fort Pitt (girls) and the Maths School (boys). They were then then offered places at the Chatham Grammar Schools which they couldn't reach because of distance and of lack of transport. Of course this still leaves the problem for the boys. Grammar school qualified girls living in urban Medway, who lose out on places at Fort Pitt, will all be eligible for places at another Medway grammar school, although not necessarily one of their choice. Nevertheless, one can see it will be extremely unpopular with some girls who live in urban Medway, just outside the two mile limit, who have traditionally seen Fort Pitt as 'their' grammar school, and some families will be very upset when they realise they have no place there.  

Oddly, there is no catch all criterion at the bottom of the list, so the school clearly anticipates being oversubscribed with girls from the Hoo Peninsula for the future. If not, then it has no way of distinguishing between qualified applicants living more than two miles from the school, but not on the Hoo Pensinsula, and so theoretically would have to accept them all.