Kent and Medway Secondary School Allocations 2017: Kent on Sunday 1st April 2017

Saturday, 01 April 2017 22:17

Kent and Medway Secondary School Allocations 2017: Kent on Sunday 1st April 2017

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This article is based on four more comprehensive ones, elsewhere in this website: Kent Grammar Schools; Kent Non-Selective Schools; Medway Grammar Schools; Medway Non-Selective schools.

The allocation of secondary school places took place at the beginning of March and this article surveys some of the consequences of the decisions taken.

The two biggest pressure areas appear to be in Thanet non-selective schools and North West Kent grammar schools, but there are plenty of others.

The problems in Thanet are caused both by an influx of pupils and a massive polarisation of popularity with every one of the six non-selective schools full on allocation. Many parents try to avoid two schools, Royal Harbour and Hartsdown Academies and as a consequence these two were allocated 166 children who had no school of their choice, more than a quarter of the total in the county. These will include a large number of Children In Care, dispatched by London Boroughs; others are children from the EC and refugees, all bringing their own challenges to the schools. As a direct consequence, three schools are massively oversubscribed, with St George’s CofE, King Ethelbert and Charles Dickens (last Inspection – Special Measures proving no obstacle!) turning away 186, 126 and 53 first choices respectively. The first two are the first and third most popular non-selective schools in Kent, split by Valley Park in Maidstone, which turned away 179 first choices.

At the other end of the county, the pressure on North West grammar schools is intense, brought about through London families looking to secure grammar school places. The six schools have offered 280 out of county (ooc) places between them, including some from north of the Thames, with a further 62 at four Medway grammars. Dartford Grammar School, has placed a limit of 90 places for local boys, selecting those with the highest scores. It has offered places to 79 ooc boys, with many grammar qualified children being denied places at their local school. Dartford Grammar school has gone down the same route, allocating 100 places to local girls, alongside 55 oocs.

There is heavy oversubscription at all four Dartford grammars, with Dartford Boys, the most popular school in Kent, turning away 257 grammar qualified first choices, by some way the highest number in the county, followed by Dartford Girls with 188. Next come three West Kent grammars: Tonbridge (151); Skinners (143); and Judd at (102), and then Wilmington Girls (Dartford) at 58.

Polarisation of parental choice is seeing the most popular schools receiving ever more applications, at the expense of those at the bottom of the pile. This trend has already seen the closure of four schools in recent years: Chaucer Technology School, Canterbury; Marlowe Academy, Thanet; Oasis Hextable Academy, serving Dartford; and Pent Valley School, Folkestone – all areas where there is now a critical shortage of places. The evidence suggests these will not be the last. The Chaucer and Pent Valley sites are planned to see replacement Free Schools.

There are three new provisions for September 2017, the first being the Weald of Kent Sevenoaks Annexe for girls, providing 90 new places. Many other grammar schools have expanded, with the super-selective Judd School adding 60 places over the past five years (now 180). Tunbridge Wells Boys has added 30 places to complement the girls’ increase in the annexe for West Kent children.

Cranbrook School, the last 13-18 grammar school in the County has at last begun a tentative change to entry at age 11, with 30 of its 90 day places (it also has 30 boarders) now being reserved for 11 year olds. I was surprised to see just 24 first choices turned away.

The third new provision appears almost accidental. The Leigh University Technical College, for 14-18 students choosing a vocationally oriented school, has failed to attract 50% of its planned intake in any of its first three years since opening, dropping to 25% in 2016. The rescue plan is to ditch the core philosophy and recruit at age 11, so the Inspiration Academy at Leigh UTC has rapidly come into being, proving a popular choice and attracting its full complement of 120 places. This has damaged Ebbsfleet Academy for, although performing well, it has never been popular and now has 40% of its new Year Seven places empty, the only non-selective school in Dartford with vacancies.

The only completely new school approved so far is Maidstone School of Science and Technology, a Free School with an intake of 180 pupils, to be opened on the campus of the sponsoring schools, Valley Park and Invicta Grammar schools due to open in 2018. This will coincide with extensive housing developments in the District, but threatens the survival of nearby New Line Learning Academy which had just 96 pupils choosing it, fewer than half of its Admission Number of 210. These were topped up with 50 Local Authority allocations, two thirds of the children in Maidstone with no school of their choice.

The urban myth that all grammar schools are oversubscribed, happens to be true for the first time ever in Medway, partially as a result of the London effect. This is in spite of four of the six grammars adding a total of 70 new places between them. Four schools are heavily oversubscribed, the most popular being the two super-selectives, Rochester Grammar (87 turned away), and Rainham Mark Grammar (62).

Altogether there is a net increase of 192 grammar school places across Kent for 2017, together with 70 in Medway. One puzzle is the £4 million investment by KCC at Maidstone Grammar to create another 30 places for boys, although the school is not oversubscribed this year. More importantly is the damage this has done to Oakwood Park Grammar in the same town, which has lost 30 boys as a result, leaving it with 65 vacancies. Meanwhile Maidstone Girls’ Grammar has 42 vacancies and Invicta Grammar has just filled by virtue of reducing its Admission Number by 20 girls. Plenty of room in Maidstone, contributing to a total of eight grammars in Kent having vacancies.

Altogether there are six schools with over a third of their places empty, headed by Duke of York’s Royal Military School, a boarding Academy in Dover, having recently completed a £25 million building project built for an Admission Number of 104. The school carries a highly controversial reputation that has seen its intake dive to 12 pupils at this stage although historically this figure increases considerably with children transferring in at older age groups.

The other five also have a history of low admission numbers and will tend to lose further children as the system shakes down in coming months: SchoolsCompany Goodwin Academy, Walmer (43% vacancies – now out of Special Measures); Holmesdale Technology College, Snodland (42%); Ebbsfleet Academy (40%); Astor College, Dover (40% - until this year run by the same leadership as Duke of York’s); and High Weald Academy, Cranbrook (38%).

In Medway, there is also a growing pattern of polarisation, with Brompton Academy, as usual being the most oversubscribed school turning away 177 first choices, followed by Thomas Aveling with 53. Three schools account for over 100 of the Local Authority Allocations: St John Fisher RC; Victory Academy and Robert Napier, but all are over 70% filled.

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Collapse of the Hadlow Group of FE Colleges

I do not normally extend my coverage of news and information about Kent and Medway schools to look at the world of Kent Further Education. But for those not aware of the ongoing scandals most recently swirling about the Hadlow Group of Colleges, you should know that these dwarf anything seen in school education.

The FE Commissioner has heavily criticised the Group, currently comprising West Kent College, Ashford College and Hadlow College together with six subsidiary businesses (including Hadlow Rural Community School) for a ‘corporate failure of leadership, financial management and governance’ . The link article is an excellent outline of the Group's structure and the cause of the problems. He has recommended that it be broken up and split between North Kent College and East Kent Colleges Group (which itself recently took over struggling Canterbury College), a small part concerned with animal management going to Capel Manor College in Enfield. A follow up letter from the relevant Minster in the DfE refers to the College as being in a perilous position.
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Written on Sunday, 14 July 2019 06:50 Be the first to comment! Read 113 times
Delce Academy in Rochester - Ofsted Special Measures - Castle Trust Not Fit for Purpose

Just two weeks ago, when I published an article on Oversubscription and Vacancies Medway Primary Schools for September 2019, I was so concerned about the self-evident mismanagement at Delce Academy, that I devoted a special section to the school, the only one I picked out in this way.

It was therefore no great surprise to me that yesterday Ofsted published a Report on an Inspection which placed Delce Academy in Special Measures concluding that: ‘Since the last inspection, leaders and those responsible for governance have been ineffective in ensuring that pupils have received an acceptable quality of education’

Just two years ago, a previous inspection concluded that the school Required Improvement, down from Good, but in this latest verdict there is no indication that the school or its leaders, including the Local Advisory Body for the school and the Directors of the Castle Trust, have drawn lessons from this or have any clue how to improve matters.‘Parents and carers told inspectors that they had lost faith in the leadership of the school. Parents are deeply concerned by high staff turnover, standards of behaviour at the school and the lack of communication from the trust and school leaders’.

This indictment surely goes some way to explain why numbers applying for places at the school have fallen away so sharply in both the Junior and controversial new Infant sections but, as always it is the children that pay the price, in stark contrast to the school motto: 'Learning Towards a Brighter Future'. Those responsible for this totally preventable disaster will as usual walk away unscathed.
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Written on Tuesday, 25 June 2019 00:04 Be the first to comment! Read 770 times
Copperfield Academy and Twydall Primary School Issued with 'Minded to Terminate' Notices

Update: Copperfield Academy has been issued with a remarkable and very positive Ofsted Monitoring Inspection Report, described here.

Both schools have been issued with tough letters from the Regional Schools Commissioner, threatening to remove them from their current sponsors, REAch2 in the case of Copperfield Academy in Northfleet, Gravesham, and Rainham Mark Education Trust in the case of Twydall Primary in Gillingham, Medway.

The letter for Copperfield is rightly the more brutal for I have recorded the misfortunes of the children of this school many times on this site, first in 2011, although a more recent article traces them back to around 2003 and there is currently no let up. This letter notes that: ‘the persons responsible for leading, managing, or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school’ and sets five specific conditions for improvement, including: that pupil performance improves by the end of 2018/19 (the recently taken SATs); that the next Ofsted Inspection removes the Inadequate label; and that no other REAch2 school from the 13 in the local region fails its Ofsted.

The Twydall letter was written in November 2018, before the 2018 Key Stage 2 results were published (see below), which show the school making rapid improvement from a troubled history that was topped off by a Serious Weaknesses Ofsted Inspection Report in June 2018. A Monitoring Inspection Report in April 2019 is wholly positive.

You will find more details about Copperfield and Twydall below
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Written on Sunday, 09 June 2019 19:46 Be the first to comment! Read 1167 times
Oversubscription and Vacancies Medway Primary Schools: 2019

The proportion of Medway children offered one of their choices in a Medway primary school has risen slightly to 97.8%, the highest proportion for at least six years. There is just one minor reduction in one school's Planned Admission number with a total of 3955 places available. As a result, there are 535 vacancies across the 67 schools, which is 13% of the total available.

Fewest vacancies are on the Hoo Peninsula at 8% total, down from 11% in 2018. Just three of the nine schools have vacancies. Most vacancies are in Rochester with just one school, The Pilgrim School, significantly oversubscribed.

Most popular school is once again Barnsole Primary which turned away 63 first choices, followed by Horsted Infants with 39 and Swingate 35. Barnsole and Swingate are the only two of the ten most oversubscribed schools to feature in both years. There are ten schools with 15 or more first choices turned down, spread across the Authority, and listed in the table below.

Eight schools have over a third of their places empty, down from 12 in 2017, headed this year by Elaine Primary with 70% of its places unfilled, brought down under the Williamson Trust, not exactly faring much better under its new sponsors The Inspire Partnership who have delivered at 35%, the lowest proportion of pupils reaching the Expected Standard and the second lowest Writing Progress score in Medway at KS2. Next comes Delce Academy with 67% empty places (featured in detail below) and then third year running by Allhallows Primary Academy 53% ( but improving on all measures). See below for more details on both these last two schools. Altogether 37 schools, over half of the total of 67 primary schools have vacancies in their Reception classes. 75 Medway children were offered none of their choices and have been allocated to other schools with vacancies by Medway Council, spread out across 22 schools, with 41 in Chatham and Gillingham schools.

I look more closely at each Medway area separately,below, links as follows: Chatham; Gillingham; Hoo Peninsula; Rainham; Rochester; Strood, together with the situation for Junior Schools, here.

If there are sections that need amplification, please let me know…….
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Written on Monday, 10 June 2019 19:09 2 comments Read 1858 times

Off-Rolling and the Unlawful Skinners’ School Registration Policy

Update on Skinners' School Appeals: In spite of the new Admission criteria, I forecast there would be around five successful appeals as in previous years. I now have it confirmed that there were exactly five!

Update on Skinner's School Registration Form (see below). I understand that after this article was drawn to the attention of Governors, the unlawful Registration Form was changed.

The issue of off-rolling is at last bubbling around official circles after many years of the practice being ignored. Ofsted has now come up with a formal definition although it can still be very difficult to prove, as many of those affected are vulnerable in different ways, reluctant to complain, fearful of the school, or simply do not know the actions are unlawful.

OFSTED DEFINITION OF OFF-ROLLING

Off-rolling is the practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without using a permanent exclusion, when the removal is primarily in the best interests of the school, rather than the best interests of the pupil. This includes pressuring a parent to remove their child from the school roll.

It can happen in any type of school, as I demonstrated a couple of years ago, when I exposed the Invicta Grammar scandal which went national and resulted in government being forced to clarify the existing law. Two concerned families recently sent me copies of the Registration Form for new pupils at The Skinners’ School, a super-selective grammar. This unlawfully provides for the Governors to be able to require the removal of any pupil on the recommendation of the Headmaster that it is desirable, explored in detail below!!!!!

A major pointer to off-rolling taking place is a large percentage fall in numbers between the start of Year 10 and January of Year 11 along with, or alternatively, high Elective Home Education numbers (EHE). The importance of the January date is that after this, pupils leaving the school will have their GCSE performance (or absence) counted in official outcomes. Nine Kent and three Medway schools lost between 7% and 14% of their cohort in this way this year, five of them for at least two years running.