At allocation, 413 Kent children were placed into schools they had not applied for, as their preferred choices were full. If we ignore these, there was a total of 1968 empty places in provision for the new intake into Kent schools. 568 of these places are concentrated in just 9 of the old style Academies, most of which have been the subject of massive rebuilding programmes and are clearly unpopular with parents and children. All these Academies are more than a quarter empty, with Skinners Kent Academy in Tunbridge Wells,  Duke of York’s Royal Military Academy in Dover (boarding) and New Line Learning Academy in Maidstone being more than a half empty before children who hadn’t applied for them were shipped in. However, even after allocating possibly unwilling children to these schools, we see New Line Learning Academy with 47% empty spaces, Spires Academy in Sturry with 35%, Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate with 31%, and Skinners Kent Academy, Orchard Academy, Swanley, and Dover Christ Church Academy all over a quarter empty. And after appeals and waiting lists for more popular schools come into play, the number of gaps in these Academies will only increase.

 

Ten other Kent schools were more than a quarter empty after reallocation with Angley School, Cranbrook highest at 48%.

 If Kent is to reduce its number of empty spaces to the target 5%, then 875 Year Seven vacancies need to be removed from the least popular schools. Which Government run Academies will Mr Gove consider shrinking or closing down? The full article was the basis of a news item in Kent on Sunday and can be found here.