It is no secret that I believe the Medway grammar school selection process is not fit for purpose. The Medway Test itself is unfair, and is biased towards girls, followed by a shocking Review process that identified fewer than nine additional children against a target of 72 this year. This contributed to a surplus of places on allocation allowing 18% of offers to be made to children from outside Medway. Boys are discriminated against further if they do not pass the Test, last year being typical with not one being successful at appeal. Meanwhile, 38 girls had appeals upheld at Chatham Grammar. Elsewhere there were just two other successful appeals last year for children who had not been found selective by the Medway Test out of a total of 99. Both were girls. Overall there are 505 places in girls’ grammar schools, with just 385 for the boys, a massive discrepancy surely inviting a legal challenge on grounds of discrimination. But, as I observe regularly, no one seems to care about all of this!  

Parents have a legal right to make a late application to any school, but Medway Council sets out unlawfully to make this very difficult especially for grammar school applicants. You will find the situation described and my advice here as to a way through. 

After the next section, I look at each of the six grammar schools in more detail: Chatham Grammar, Fort Pitt Grammar, Holcombe Grammar, Rainham Mark Grammar, Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, and The Rochester Grammar School (including the strange case of the £3 million grant awarded for an expansion that never happened). 

The Medway secondary school offers of places in September that went out to families on 1^st March filled every non-selective school (and four of the six grammar schools). Sufficient places for Medway children were only (and almost) created by eight of the 13 schools offering an additional 178 places above their Planned Admission Numbers between them. However, some of these families will also have applied to the new Maritime Academy, offering 180 places and due to open in temporary buildings that is hardly likely to be a selling point, because it is not part of the co-ordinated admissions scheme. Families taking up Maritime places will therefore free up others elsewhere. Meanwhile, the proportion of Medway children awarded their first choice school is the highest since 2016, a fact strangely omitted from the Council’s minimalist press release (see updated article).

The biggest individual school news is that Brompton Academy saw a record 273 first choices turned down, with Sir Thomas Aveling’s popularity is also soaring, with 143 disappointed first choices.

I look at the admissions story in more detail below, together with the likely effects of the Maritime Academy opening.

I have now published more details about the book and its background at: No Excuses: Turning around one of Britain’s toughest schools (2).

Alison Colwell, who took over the recovering Ebbsfleet Academy in 2011 and oversaw its turning into one of Kent’s least popular secondary schools, then publicly denigrated its white working class parents on her departure from the school in an article in The Sunday Times. She then tried to publish 'the true story' of her experience through a leading book publisher back in August 2020. Publication was delayed several times and finally cancelled at the end of last year. She is now trying again with the same story through  Biteback Publishing, a company specialising in political and current affairs titles. You will find a full analysis of her time at Ebbsfleet Academy here. The title of the book has now changed to the above from ‘The Secret Headteacher’, reportedly because she was ‘outed’ in an interview in The Times in November 2020. I have never seen any evidence that Ebbsfleet Academy has ever been seen as one of Britain's 'toughest schools', or seen it suggested by any professional, parent or other person, in my wide and lengthy experience writing and learning about Kent schools. Quite simply, this is a ridiculous claim, and merely undermines the credibility of the book further. 

Ms Colwell is of course one of many school leaders to become styled as ‘Britain’s strictest/toughest headteacher’, and I have written a number of articles about the Kent examples, (2017 onwards) all of which have failed to deliver on their ‘no excuses’ imperative, most recently here. One of the latest who attracted national publicity was previously Vice-Principal at Ebbsfleet, who carried the same disastrous principles into the high profile Pimlico Academy and, after just eight months, was very publicly forced to leave.

Update 16th March: I now have further information showing that the highest proportion of Medway children has been offered their first choice school since 2016, even before Maritime Academy decisions are taken into account. Wasn't that worth mentioning in the press release! See the new table of allocations below. 

Medway Council has published its usual minimalist press release relating to secondary school admissions reporting that more than 95 per cent of the 3,554 Medway children offered places have been awarded a place at one of their preferred secondary schools. 

It then goes on to inform readers that the new Maritime Academy is to sort of open in September, although this is three years after its planned start in 2019. I have chronicled the subsequent delays, and it will still not be ready for September, the school to take up temporary accommodation in the now closed Stoke Primary school site for one or two years. In an unprecedented move, as some children have been offered two schools (Maritime Academy is not part of the Coordinated Admissions Scheme this year). Medway Council has decided not to offer any place to some children at all, in contravention of the legally binding 2021 School Admissions Code, which states that: ‘for secondary school applications, all offers must be made on the same secondary National Offer Day i.e.1 March or the next working day’ (page 23).  That is all the relevant information supplied!

Of necessity, much of the remainder of this article relates to these two news items, along with advice on what to do if you have not been offered a school of your choice, including yet another unlawful claim by Medway Council that 'If you apply for a school place after the closing date, your application will only be considered if you can provide a good reason' (see here). 

Update Thursday 3rd March: There is clearly a problem for grammar qualified boys in the Longfield/New Ash Green area following an increase in the pass rate for the Kent Test in Gravesham, with all of Gravesend, Wilmington and Dartford oversubscribed. You will see from last year's appeals article that Gravesend (and Mayfield) was the only one likely to uphold some appeals. Borden in Sittingbourne and Oakwood Park in Maidstone both have vacancies and are worth a try. As usual, problems for N/S Sittingbourne schools. Unhappiness in Folkestone, where Turner Free School priority for the three Trust primary schools has bitten hard this year. 

8th March: See comment below about non-selective problems for Edenbridge children. 

Kent parents who applied online for secondary school places for their children are scheduled to receive decisions for 5 p.m. on Tuesday (4 p.m. on online accounts) but, because of the large numbers, some usually come through an hour or more earlier, other families hear by post on Wednesday.

Key headlines are that 14,574, or 80% of Kent year Six pupils were offered their first choice school, the highest percentage since 2018, after three years of declining numbers. 2,089 pupils, 11% of the total, were offered their second choice. 850 children received none of their four choices, which is almost the same as in 2021, but far lower than the exceptionally high 2020 number. A total of 18,311 Kent families applied for a place for their child in a Kent secondary school, 38 more than last year, along with 3,578 from out of county, down by 413. 

I will be publishing a full breakdown of offers, by school in a few weeks when I receive the data, including out of county offers. Any details of the latter have been omitted from the KCC press release for the first time in many years. There is considerably more information and comment below along with initial advice on what to do if you have not been offered the school of your choice. This begins as always with my Corporal Jones mantra, do NOTHING in panic! You may regret it. Although there is no quick fix, up to a thousand more families will secure a preferred school over the next five months, through reallocation via the waiting list, appeals and late applications, also considered in a 2021 article here.

Kent County Council has previously published the procedure only for children moving into the county, but only very recently added the way forward for those already resident and those whose families still live outside Kent. Medway Council continues to ignore the legal requirement. I look below at the very different situations in Kent and Medway.

This article follows on from: Kent Test and Headteacher Assessment for Entry in September 2022: Further Analysis, which looked at outcomes for children at Kent state primary schools.

There were 3078 children from out of county Local Authorities who were found selective in the Kent Test of September 2021 for entry in 2022. Over 80% of these came from Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich, a similar figure to the 2020 Test. Whilst this may appear high, there were just 466 ooc children offered Kent grammar school places the previous year, just over 10% of those found selective. Warren Road Primary School in Bromley had 60 children found selective by the Kent process, the most of any ooc school, and a higher figure than all but one Kent primary schools.  

The number of children from Kent private schools taking the Kent Test fell sharply by nearly a hundred to 632, although the pass rate rose. Last year’s increase in private school girls taking the test was reversed. there were 28 home educated children who were found selective. 

One of the great disappointments of my 15 years of campaigning about the many deficiencies and incompetences of Medway Council is that I have completely failed to achieve any progress in seeing the Medway grammar school selection process made fit for purpose. This was the subject of one of my earliest articles in 2009 and continued through to the latest on 2022 admissions. I did however stop a wholly unnecessary increase in girls’ grammar school places by the Thinking Schools Academies Trust at the expense of the shrinking further the limited number of boys’ places (ironically considering the latest proposal). I also blocked several attempts by local Academy Trusts to change their admission criteria to suit themselves rather than Medway children and won a number of complaints to the Information Commissioner about the incompetence of the Council and its Councillors. 

You will find below a quick gallop through some of the 60 plus items I have written about Medway schools, focusing on Council and academy trust matters, to complement my earlier Review of Seventeen Years of Support for Families.

My apologies to The Rowans, a PRU in Medway (see below), that I omitted from my original version of this article. 

This will be my last secondary and Special school Ofsted round up, before retirement, looking at outcomes in Kent in 2021 and 2022. Covid regulations sharply reduced the number of formal inspections but the last year has now seen nine for secondary schools, and four for Special schools, including two Outstanding Residentials. Strood Academy has received one short inspection. There was a No Notice Inspection in November 2020.

Two regularly controversial N/S schools improved their assessments, Hartsdown to Good, and Holmesdale to Requires Improvement, whilst of the five grammar school inspections, The Skinners School dropped to Good and, in a Short Inspection Wilmington Grammar Girls is to be re-inspected as its Outstanding classification comes into question. There was just one Inspection in Medway in this period, The Rowans, a Pupil Referral Unit with its second consecutive Outstanding assessment, although there was a special inspection at Victory Academy in November 2020.

The Outstanding Residential assessment for Broomhill Bank North is especially noteworthy. 

Update 17th Feb: (1) One correction on CME data, and two additional sections on historical patterns and possible grammar school Sixth Form off-rolling. 

This article triggered an item on Radio Kent, 25th January. KCC issued a statement for the programme, here. The BBC identifies that about a third of a million migrant workers have returned home. Many of these will have taken families with them. 

A record number of 1,485 Kent families withdrew their children from school last year to take up Elective Home Education (EHE), nearly double the figure in 2019-20 which had dipped probably because of a Covid effect. In Medway, the figure of 310 is also a record. These families have chosen instead to 'educate' them at home to variable standards, sometimes because their child's school is unable to cater for their needs properly, leaving some families with nowhere else to turn.  Many families will educate their children to high standards, some will struggle to achieve these, but in other cases EHE will simply cover neglect or worse, with children's life chances being ruined. Local Authorities have no powers to investigate the circumstances of the decision. At the same time also, 721 Kent children went missing from education, sometimes with schools having no idea of their destination, the proportion going missing in Medway being even higher, over twice as large as Kent. Many of these children will be from traveller or Eastern European families, some of the latter returning home after Brexit, others coming back to the schools after a period on the road. Local Authorities will know of children who have simply stopped attending school, and there are procedures in place to attempt enforcement, as outlined here. Some of these, together with others who have simply vanished from their homes or were in Care, may be seriously at risk of exploitation, but no one knows how many.   

These are areas where government education policy is severely lacking, with failures to collect data about children being educated at home, to require children educated at home to be registered, or to make any sort of check on the quality of what is being offered them in terms of education, despite various promises through the years.

The welcome news that Hartsdown has been awarded a Good Ofsted assessment by Inspectors, is now public although there has is still a delay in publishing it on the Ofsted Website. In October 2020, I wrote about the apparent ‘Damascene conversion’ of headteacher Matthew Tate as the evidence mounted that the school was changing from its previous and failing ‘Tough Love’ model. The school website has been transformed to reflect this new positive model, exclusions have dropped dramatically, as have the number of children being withdrawn for Home Education, academic performance has improved, and it is reported that the number of first choices for admission in September has risen as parents become aware of the transformation.

It is not for me to answer the question posed by this glorious headline in an article in KentOnline posted yesterday, but I appreciate it more than I can say. I recently wrote a piece below, setting out some of the highlights of the past fifteen years of running KentAdvice, initially set up to advertise my personal consultation service which supported families who had problems with schools or the education service across Kent and Medway. I know it will not be well received by those in education I have crossed, but it is wonderful to receive such recognition from Kent's leading newspaper organisation, the KM Group, who have covered some of my most celebrated stories. These are amongst some seven hundred news items on this site many of which have created a variety of waves, but I have always maintained that the most important section is the information section which is accessed via the right hand site of this page, and via multiple links from news items. These articles are designed to offer support and advice to families about their children's education.

The top five news stories on the page below are typical of the wide range of themes covered: Elective Home Education & Children Missing from Education in Kent & Medway 2020-21 (an annual production); the Crisis in Primary Provision in the new Ebbsfleet Development; the Kent Test and Headteacher Assessment for Entry in September 2022: Further Analysis(another annual item); The New Park Crescent Academy in Margate:  Scrapped (one of the most controversial stories of the year but given minimal coverage elsewhere); and Hayesbrook School: The demolition of Brook Learning Trust Continues. These provide a mixture of information articles for parents, controversial but I hope factual reporting, and a report on the unmourned demise of another failed academy Trust. 

An article in Kentonline, headed ‘Ebbsfleet Garden City parents sold dream new homes but cannot get children into nearby schools’, understates the serious problem of primary school provision in the area. Currently, three new primary schools have been built to serve Ebbsfleet, but all are full and oversubscribed for the current Reception Year, and three of the four schools in nearby Swanscombe and Greenhithe are also bursting at the seams. Dartford town offers no respite, with just eight Reception vacancies out of 972 places available. There is a current crisis in the provision of primary places in both areas with few signs of how it is to improve.

I have now published  a further article analysing Kent Test outcomes for children attending Kent private schools, out of county schools and those being home educated here. 

This article follows on from the previous: ‘Kent Test 2021, Initial Results and Comment’, published in October and continues in the shadow of issues relating to the coronavirus pandemic. It looks in more detail at the performance of state school children in the Kent grammar school selection process, with another looking at those from schools outside Kent and local private schools here.

For entry in September 2022, there is a partial shift back to the 2019 pre Covid norms, with the proportion of children taking the test up and boys’ performance improving considerably. My concerns about the gap between East and West in the Kent Test continues, but this has been smoothed out to some extent by a surge in numbers for East Kent children being successful in the Headteacher Assessment. 

After the initial headline details immediately below, you will find further sections on additional pages, from the following links: Pupil Premium; District Variation; Performance of Pupils in Individual Schools;  Local Tests; Head Teacher Assessments; October 2021 Census.  

Can I begin by thanking the many correspondents, both parents and professionals, who have sent messages of appreciation following my initial article, with two very different messages. Firstly from the many families who have written to thank me for the advice and information on the site and/or my consultation service, from which they have benefitted;  and secondly as summarised by a headteacher - ‘Your tenacity in ensuring no stone was left unturned in exposing situations that were harming the educational chances of Kent children needs to be applauded’.

As well as the website and my consultation service, I have also worked extensively behind the scenes with some schools, together with individual governors, headteachers, staff and parents, where there have been problems in their institutions. These have all contributed to my unique insight into schools across Kent and Medway.

The reason given for the cancellation is that secondary student numbers in Thanet have dropped well below the levels predicted when the school was originally proposed in 2015. This was obvious in October 2019, when Sir Paul Carter, then Leader of KCC and in his last decision before stepping down from the role, vetoed the proposal on the grounds that ‘population numbers had not risen as fast as forecast’, against the advice of his officers who have championed this project, apparently unquestioningly, throughout.  In February 2020 his decision was reversed again by Lord Agnew, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System (who would soon have a new Policy Advisor, Dr Jo Saxton)  on the interesting grounds that, although there was no need for a new school on grounds of numbers, the quality of some current secondary provision in Thanet was of poor quality and it was important to offer choice!

KCC, under its new education leadership, and Baroness Barran, the new Minister for the School System, have now agreed that the project should be cancelled for the second time, again on the grounds that there is no need for it, according to a press release from KCC on 6^th December this year, ! There is no mention of the central reason given by Lord Agnew for reinstating the project, because of problems with current quality of provision, nor that the planning application had proposed a wholly impracticable school on a site that that even KCC acknowledged was constricted or constrained where space is at a premium, as I have demonstrated here. 

Following an FOI Request I can confirm that the cost of the land for the new school was £6.8 million and there are no constraints, apart from Planning Permissions, on how the land is to be used. See below. The next question I am chasing is how much the aborted project cost Kent taxpayers. Perhaps relevant Councillors may like to try and find out also!

Update with the View of Leigh Academies Trust, below.

Leigh Academies Trust, which took over the failed Brook Learning Trust, is consulting on plans to change the nature of Hayesbrook School, once the flagship of the Trust but now struggling badly.

Hayesbrook is one of just two single sex boys’ schools in the county, and the proposal is for it to also admit girls. A press release issued on Monday gives the main reason as being its unpopularity with families, quoting the data in my article ‘Oversubscription & Vacancies: Kent Non-Selective Schools 2021’, which shows it having  the third lowest number of admission first choices in the county. The press release goes on to claim that the unpopularity is because it is a boys' school, although my analysis below suggests this is only part of the picture.

The reality is that Hayesbrook School has been badly managed for several years, as I identified in an article earlier this year, when looking at the appalling Brook Learning Trust which has now handed its three schools over to Leigh. It has already decided to close one of them, High Weald Academy, whilst Ebbsfleet Academy, after a disastrous period under a 'no excuses' headteacher, appears to be slowly settling down and then there is Hayesbrook! What a turnaround from 2015, when it achieved the highest GCSE performance in the county for non-selective schools (excluding three highly selective church schools). In January this year it had 368 pupils in Years 7-11, less than half the capacity 755, and so had to subsist on a handout from KCC of £297,000.

Back in 2017 the Trust's auditors expressed significant doubts about whether it could continue to operate unless finances improved, as confirmed by the Trustees. The warning was repeated the next year, but then Brook Learning Trust's response was to deny everything, change auditors so that there were no further doubts expressed, and sit tight until the money ran out, which appears to be the case at both Hayesbrook and High Weald.  

This is an update of an article I previously published last December, following a survey of admission to the Sixth Forms and the largest non-selective school Sixth Forms, which has already been visited nearly six thousand times. I am republishing it as a support for students and their families looking for a Sixth Form course in school in 2022. This edition includes more information and details of further schools who ran larger Sixth Forms in 2020 (I don't have the 2021 information  yet). 

There appears limited advice and information to many Year 11 students on what their Sixth Form options are outside their own school, so a year ago I carried out an extensive analysis, looking at all 38 grammar schools across Kent and Medway and those 37 non-selective (N/S) schools running 6th Forms with an intake of over eighty students in 2019. This article is an update, including looking at nine more N/S schools that met my cut off according to the October 2020 school census. Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that over a quarter of 6th form students in both grammar and N/S schools were in different schools for Year 11, with a healthy 15% of the total 6th Form numbers in grammars having transferred from N/S schools.  There is no co-ordinated admission system for 6th Form admission, so students can apply for as many schools as they wish. Whilst the number of external students to be admitted is theoretically capped, individual schools interpret this limitation in different ways, with many never reaching the limit. 

I believe this study is unique but is intended to encourage more young people to reflect and make a decision about what is best for them, rather than just carry on in the same school without making a positive decision, although this will still be right for most. 

The school with by some way the largest 6th Form intake from outside is the non-selective (N/S) Canterbury Academy admitting 294 students from other schools, including 46 from grammar and private schools and 63 from abroad. It is followed in percentage terms by Simon Langton Boys Grammar, also in Canterbury with 160 external students including 86 from other grammar schools.

I look at some of the issues below, including a look across the county by District, what I have long maintained are unlawful conditional offers for entry to school 6th Forms, and the sadly most newsworthy school of all, the debacle at The Rochester Grammar School. I am afraid I am not able look at the wide range of alternative options, the free KM magazine The Next Step covering many of the possibilities. 

This article follows on from the previous: ‘Kent Test 2021, Initial Results and Comment’, published in October and continues in the shadow of issues relating to the coronavirus pandemic. Last year I reported a sharp fall in most performance statistics over the 2019 pre-pandemic data especially for boys, state school children and those in the East and mid of the county. This article looks at the performance of state school children, with another looking at those from private schools and schools outside Kent to come later.

For entry in September 2022, there is a partial shift back to the 2019 pre Covid norms, with boys’ performance improving considerably. My concerns about the gap between East and West in the Kent Test continues, but this has been smoothed out by a surge in numbers for East Kent children being successful in the Headteacher Assessment. So, whilst just 10% of children in Dover, 12% in Swale and 13% in Thanet achieved passes in the Kent Test, against a county average of 19%, Headteacher assessments saw these percentages rise considerably. Overall, 24.6% of Kent state school children were found suitable for grammar schools, with slightly more boys than girls succeeding. Sevenoaks (32%), Tunbridge Wells (30%) and Dartford (29%) schools had the highest pass rates, with Folkestone & Hythe and Dover (18%) and Thanet (21%) at the other end. Six schools run an additional Local Test, which added an astonishing 8% to the total found selective last year, mostly in Folkestone & Hythe and Dover. The number of pupils in Kent private schools taking the Kent Test fell sharply for some reason, with the number of passes down by 8%.

Individual schools with the highest pass rates were:  Amherst (67%), St Thomas Catholic and Lady Boswell’s CofE (63%), all three being Sevenoaks schools; Our Lady’s Catholic, Dartford (60%); Ightham, Tonbridge (56%); Dartford Bridge and Wickhambreaux CofE, Canterbury (55%); and Hernhill CofE, Swale, (54%). Of course, many of these passes will have been achieved with the support of private coaching, and not dependent on the schools, which are not supposed to prepare directly for the Kent Test.

After the general comments immediately below, you will find further sections on additional pages, from the following links. Pupil Premium; District Variation; Performance of Pupils in Individual Schools;  Local Tests; Head Teacher Assessments; October 2021 Census.   

Update 23 November: I have just discovered that the 1120 suspensions in 2017-18, which is equivalent to 82.3% of the total secondary roll of Folkestone Academy, was over twice as high a proportion as any other Kent secondary school in the surrounding three years (the latest available). At the time the school was led by Dr Jo Saxton, recently appointed Regulator of Ofqual, who believes, along with one of her gurus that: ‘Behaviours that lead to exclusions happen when students perceive there to be no limits and no expectations and no rules’. Next came Bishopsgarth Academy in Stockport in 20191-20, with just 40.3%.  

Covid continues to exercise a strong effect on school exclusions across Kent and Medway primary and secondary schools, with a third fewer fixed term cases in 1920-21, compared to pre-pandemic 2018-19. Much of the decrease will be down to all schools being closed for 39 school days in the lockdown last year, and a sharply increased pupil absence brought about by children infected or else closely connected with another child who has contracted the condition.  

Waterfront UTC in Medway, a regular in the list of secondary high excluding schools, heads it for 2020-21 with an astonishing 46% of the statutory roll figure, although a number of these will be pupils with multiple exclusions. Victory Academy, also in Medway comes second with a remarkable increase from 66 fixed term exclusions pre-pandemic two years previously to a record 403, being the equivalent of 42.1% of the statutory roll. This follows a Special Ofsted Inspection into reported concerns about the behaviour and attitudes of pupils, see below. Other  schools regularly in the list are Astor College, also on 42.1%, High Weald Academy 38.9% (now closing permanently next summer), John Wallis CofE Academy on 38.1% and Charles Dickens School on 33.1%, together with the other local University Technical College, the Leigh UTC, with 28.8%, and Robert Napier School in Medway with 22.5% . The average exclusion rate across Kent’s Non-Selective schools was 10.6%.

The number of exclusions at many primary schools varies considerably year on year, probably a property of small numbers, with a single case of a child attracting multiple exclusions capable of making a significant difference. However, overall numbers have been falling significantly for each of the past three years, They are led in 2020-21 by Northdown Primary School in Thanet with 11.4% of its roll number excluded, up from just 4% the previous year. The Inspire Free School in Medway, a secondary special school catering mainly for children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs, deserves particular mention, excluding each of its 44 children 1.75 times on average. However, this is lower than 2019-20’s incredible 2.2 times, a unique record for any institution across Kent and Medway, and explored further below, along with two other Special Schools.   

There was a total of just three permanent exclusions in primary schools and eight in secondaries across Kent, a record low, with the story of how the secondary figure has been brought down from 161 ten years ago, and my part in it, told below.  Medway had 11 permanent exclusions, all from secondary schools, also a record low. 

I also look at the latest published national and local Authority data below for 2019-20, including Kent's remarkable sixth lowest proportion of secondary permanent exclusions out of 150 LAs. Both Kent and Medway are also below average in the number of fixed term exclusions carried out. 

Leigh Academies Trust has confirmed the closure of High Weald Academy in Cranbrook, in a press release issued today. As my previous article makes clear, I believe the decision was inevitable, but also that regrettably it is right. I am so sorry for all the families caught up in this tragedy, brought about by the failure of the leaders of the previous Brook Learning Trust who have let down the pupils of all the three schools for which they were responsible.

Sadly, the current generation of pupils at High Weald will pay a price for that failure. It is now up to Leigh to minimise the damage this will cause, as the pupils make a potentially traumatic change of school, leaving their own locality for a future education miles away, that we must assume will be a considerable improvement on what has been offered previously.

At the time of the announcement, there were around 200 pupils in Years 7-10 at the school, but this number has already fallen to just 75 as most parents have already made their own arrangements for alternatives, ahead of the plan to offer all pupils places at Mascalls School by the end of this school year. It must already appear to be a ghost school to those who remain in the new premises opened less than two years ago at a cost of some £13 million. 

Updated 31st October

This article looks at Year Seven and primary school appeals in Kent and Medway for admission in September 2021. This has been the second year under the Covid pandemic, and once again no school appeals have been conducted with the previously normal face-to-face hearings.  I looked at this issue previously in the 2020 article with all appeals being conducted by video or telephone conferencing or else, as in the majority of cases, by panels considering the paper evidence submitted. The government has announced more flexibility of process for 2022 appeals, to allow them to take place  'in person, or by telephone, video conference or through a paper-based appeal where all parties can make representations in writing'.

The number of successes in Kent grammar school hearings is almost identical to 2020, with 443 grammar appeals upheld,  although the number of hearings fell sharply by 17% to 1628.  The number of successes in non-selective schools (N/S) is also very similar to 2020 at 145, although here the number of appeals rose by the same 17% to 853. N/S schools outcomes fluctuate considerably each year as not only do the schools often increase their intake to meet need, but they also lose variable numbers to grammar schools after their own appeals. Medway grammar school appeals repeat the regular and disgraceful discrimination against boys, seen also in the selection process. 

There were no successes at all for the 268 appeals to Kent and Medway primary schools conducted by KCC Panels where infant class legislation applies (see below for an explanation).

I look at the appeal outcomes of all individual secondary schools more closely below.

Six years ago, Kent County Council tightened up its regulations (page 16) on home addresses declared on primary school admission applications following my lobbying about the issue over previous years. However, whilst the rules for county-maintained secondary schools may be similar, the explanation (page 11) of how they operate appears to have been designed primarily so as not to offend anyone. In the same vein, many academies treat this issue as one of minimal importance and, for example, the Eleven Plus website regularly contains discussion of short term temporary addresses to secure places, for example posted two days ago: ‘I live in London and the cut-off date for CAF is 31st of October….If I can get a rental agreement in place before 1st of Nov I can apply to Kent directly’.  I have written two previous articles on this issue here and here, having lobbied for several years previously without effect. One problem is that KCC delegates responsibility for investigating and establishing such fraudulent applications even for its own schools, including small primaries.

A few Kent schools treat this issue with the seriousness it observes, notably Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar which sets out its rules and the consequences of breaking them very clearly, see below.

I appreciate that some of those parents who use devices to secure places at the schools that break the rules don't see themselves as committing fraud and don't think about the children deprived of places by their actions. A previous Schools Adjudicator, previously a Deputy Director of Education for Kent,  came up with ten  'popular' means of outwitting the system. However, I have no intention of reproducing these and, because few are picked up, there is no way of estimating the scale of the problem.   

I appreciate this is not the best year for schools to commit additional resources to identify such cases, but it would send out a powerful message if more schools would investigate possibilities One simple device for secondary schools is to look at the current primary school of the child and if it is out of area to investigate further! 

Article on School Appeal Outcomes for 2021 here. 

Updated and revised 27 October, with further data provided by KCC. 

Headline News: 190 more Kent state school boys passed the Kent Test than last year whilst the number of girls qualifying for a grammar school place fell by 52. For the first time in several years, boys secured most passes, 2325 against the girls 2185. The shift in passes from East Kent to West Kent is reported to have continued. 

The Kent Test results have again produced a pass mark with an aggregate score of 332, with an additional requirement to score 109 on each of the three sections - English, mathematics, and reasoning, one up on last year’s individual test pass mark.  The level of pass marks is no indication of difficulty in the Test, rather a complex standardisation of raw scores against a national sample of children, comparing like ages with each other. This year 25.8% of the cohort, comprising all of Kent’s Year six children in primary schools, added to all Kent private school pupils who took the Test, were found selective. This is up from last year’s 25.4%, but down on 2019’s 26.6%. The intention is to select 21% of the cohort through the Kent Test each year, along with another four percent by Headteacher Assessment, as explained here, making up a target of 25%.

The number of state school children taking the Kent Test has risen by 474 this year, the increase being mainly boys, but is still not back to the number in 2019. I don't at present know what to make of the shift from girls to boys qualifying for grammar school.

3113 children from Out of County and other groups such as those being home educated were also found selective, up from 3062 last year,  although these turned into just 460 offers of Kent grammar school places.  

I have been told that the differential between pass rates in East and West Kent has widened further, as discussed extensively in previous articles, most recently at ‘Covid-19 and the Kent Grammar School Selection Process for 2022 Entry’, but as yet have no confirmation of this.  This results from KCC’s failure to compensate for the effects of Covid on ‘ordinary’ and disadvantaged families in the selection process. I have still to learn the detail of this but have been told for example, that in Swale, an area with a high number of socially disadvantaged families, the pass rate is again lower. I have talked with a number of school leaders in the East of the county and according to them, along with many reports in the media, there is no doubt that pupil absence, teacher absence and other factors over the past two years have played havoc with the learning of too many children, many of whom have the ability to thrive in grammar schools but have now been denied a place.

Please note that this article was initially produced to meet the deadline for secondary school admissions and will be revised as I learn more details. I explore further below all the matters in this introduction, along with sections on Sources of Information and Advice on admissions and appeals, Out of County Children, Pressure Points and Finally. 

Article on School Appeal Outcomes for 2021 to be posted shortly. 

This news item is essentially a guide to a host of information and advice articles for local families looking to make applications for secondary school places in state schools in Kent and Medway next September, together with 2021 appeal outcomes. You will find Kent County Council's Admission Guide for Secondary School Admissions here, although it is difficult to find one for Medway (although required by law), so parents appear to have to settle for here. Across the country, families will be making use of their own Local Authority co-ordinated admissions schemes and make applications by the national closing date of Sunday 31^st October, although Kent extends this to Monday 1^st November. The co-ordination then spreads across county boundaries to take in cross-border applications, in a gigantic data handling mechanism.

The most important news is that last year, whilst just 70% of Kent families were awarded their first choice school, this was an exceptionally low figure, caused by a one-off change in the application procedure because of Covid, the norm is nearer 80% and I would expect something similar for 2022 entry. Unfortunately, Medway does not issue this information, but I believe it will be higher.  

Around half of all K & M families will apply for grammar school places, with the results of the Kent Test due out next Thursday 21^st October. The Medway Test results have already been sent to parents, with the outcomes of the Review process to be posted on 22nd October.

I am currently updating all the relevant articles, but even those still to be tackled can be highly relevant, although they may be up to a year out of date I am afraid. I am also preparing my article surveying 2021 appeals outcomes, although you will already find the data for every school that held appeals this year in my Individual Schools sections for Kent and Medway.

There is also a list of all the key sections, with a link to them, on the right-hand side of this page, followed immediately afterwards by a link to become a subscriber to my news and blog items as they are published (no charges, no unwanted advertising).

Five popular and successful West Kent secondary schools, Hadlow Rural Community School, Hillview School for Girls, Knole Academy, Tonbridge Grammar School, and Trinity School will announce today that they are joining in a formal collaboration to work closely together. Their aims in doing this are that the schools should together grow stronger and provide an even higher level of educational provision for their students, whilst keeping their individual identities and shielding them from the government target that all schools should come together in Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) of twelve or more schools.   

The enclosed joint Letter to Parents and FAQ are very clear on the underlying principles of the Alliance. The five schools are all very different in character as outlined below and are in no doubt that the government drive for large MATs would change and damage those characters. 

I heartily applaud this initiative which appears to have many benefits as set out in the above documentation for these schools. There is no doubt that many other schools have benefitted by the alternative MAT model, but this is a welcome reminder that there are others that would be equally effective. Also below, you will find sections on Government Policy on Academisation and Other Kent and Medway ‘Alliances’. 

New Query: Why has the New Horizons Teaching School Alliance website been closed, along with the item on the TSAT website relating to Teacher Training. Can anyone help? In my own view, the article below sets out good reasons why the whole thing should be scrapped before any more potential teachers are disillusioned.  

The Gordon School Children’s Academy in Strood saw 15 of its 25 teachers leave last year, part of a list I have of over 50 names departing in the past four years.  I have been sent several sets of grievances from different staff which add up to a consistent pattern and may go to explain these startling facts but, without corroborating evidence, it is inappropriate to quote these. The astonishing turnover of headteachers at the school, with seven in seven years, is also indicative of the pressures under which they are placed to deliver results. However, the enclosed letter sent to all teachers earlier this year is indicative of the style. The use of non-disclosure agreements for some Gordon managerial staff who have left the school has not been helpful with regard to this article. The turnover of other staff, especially Teaching Assistants is also very large. The pattern of demanding ever higher standards across the Trust's Medway schools appears common, whatever the cost to teachers and their careers or, in the case of the grammar schools of pupils who may struggle, and through the selection procedures. The high turnover of headteachers is also common in at least three other TSAT schools.  

The headteacher of Gordon, Mrs Murphy, is in her second year at the school, having transferred from the New Horizons Children’s Academy where she was succeeded by her husband. She may not remain there as she is also Principal of the new Maritime Academy, also in Strood, opening next September, although I am not aware of her secondary school background. In the meantime, New Horizons Children's Academy also appears troubled, with 11 of its 24 teachers (two part-time) having left last year. I am concerned about a detailed allegation I have received about SAT performance there, but again have no verification.  

Unsurprisingly the popularity of both schools is falling, Gordon having over a quarter of its places unfilled on allocation in May this year. New Horizons which opened in 2014 had been heavily oversubscribed for some years but had 16% empty places on allocation for this year.

Concerned staff have now been blocked from talking with me, with the Trust taking disciplinary action against at least one member, despite their having had no contact whatever with me.

So what is going wrong at the Thinking Schools Academy Trust?

Article on School Appeal Outcomes for 2021 to be posted shortly. 

Update 28th October: I now have the Medway Review Outcomes - sort of! Fewer than five of the 81 boys and fewer than five of the 98 girls from Medway state schools who went to Review were successful. No applications from private schools were successful.  What a disgrace - yet again!

The Medway Test results have now been published, with successful candidates achieving an aggregate score of 487 across the three Tests. The pass mark is set to allow a target of 23% of the Medway cohort to be successful, with 833 Medway pupils passing out of a cohort of 3605, a success rate of 23.11%. It is likely that once again well over a thousand out-of-county children will have passed the Medway Test, with more than 200 of them taking up places, including at Holcombe Grammar, blocking local boys hoping to win a  place on appeal.   

All the information at present available is in the table below, along with the results of the two previous years. I now have a more detailed breakdown from Medway Council which shows that 21% of boys and 25% of girls, attending state schools in Medway were successful both in the Test and with Review included, underlining the double unfairness of the process.  

What we do know at this stage is that for the second year running, no consideration whatever has been given to the consequences of lockdown and coronavirus on the performance of children, and indeed no mention of these in the Council Press Statement abut Medway Test results, as distinct from last year, presumably best forgotten as an inconvenience.

I also provide details of the shocking outcomes of the appeals process which saw no appeals upheld for children who did not pass the Medway Test, except at Chatham Grammar School, apart from possibly but unlikely at Rochester Grammar. There were no successes at all for boys who had not passed the Medway Test. 

You will find plenty of further information and advice below and via the links, relating to the Medway Test, the appalling Review process, appeals and application to grammar schools.

Updated: 4th October

Last week Kentonline published a dramatic story headlined: ‘Shock u-turn as KCC agrees Sheppey needs another secondary school to take on Oasis’. The sub-heading on the web address reads ‘shock as kcc bows to parent power in education shake up’ No such agreement has been made, as I know from notes of the meeting where this claim originated. However, the enthusiasm of KCC for the idea is contained in both the notes and the paperwork for the meeting enclosed, including a lengthy statement from Gordon Henderson, MP for Swale also arguing for a two-school solution, and also in a briefing paper for the meeting from Swale Borough Council.  None of these make any reference to parental views, so where 'parent power' comes from is anyone's guess. Tucked away at the foot of a subsequent KM article without comment or even a header, is a quotation from KCC rightly refuting the claim, although their support for the concept may have misled the newspaper reporter. KM has not retracted the story and so, according to Director of Education, Christine McInnes, further correspondence is being prepared.  

As explained in a previous article, there is a crisis in secondary provision in Swale with the number of pupils in Sittingbourne and Sheppey rising sharply year on year, and the Sheppey area meeting of Swale Council on 14^th September explored this issue as the main agenda item. This September, 71 Sittingbourne children have crossed the Swale to start their secondary education at OAIOS, probably nearly all from the 108 children allocated there who had not applied for the school.  They are also likely to have been amongst the 134 first choices turned away from Fulston Manor in Sittingbourne or the 110 from Westlands. The meeting notes also explain the bind which is preventing a new school in Sittingbourne from being built. So the claim by the CEO of Oasis Community Learning that the increase in numbers at OAIOS of 100 pupils (actually it is only 65) is due to the good job being done there is false as it is purely down to an increase, coincidentally also of 65, in the number of pupils in the cohort attending Sheppey primary schools.  

It is surely no coincidence that Swale had the highest level of Home Educated children in the county last year, with 1.9% of its school aged population, almost one in fifty children not attending school.   

I explore all these issues further below.

Update November 2021: The closure has now been confirmed.  

Leigh Academies Trust (LAT), which took over High Weald Academy in Cranbrook on 1^st September, has announced that the Minister of Education for Schools has decided the school will close by 31^st August 2022, subject to a final agreement of the closure plan, with pupils will be able to move to the thriving Mascalls School in Tunbridge Wells. LAT has set up a ‘Listening Period’ to obtain views on how the closure will operate. This decision has been planned for some time, probably since the takeover was agreed, and includes a linked proposal for alternative use of the redundant site left by the closure, below.    

Followers of this website will be in no doubt as to the continuous failure of High Weald Academy ever since it was taken over as a Sponsored Academy in 2012. I have regularly pointed out what was surely self-evident, that on the number of pupils it was attracting, the school was not viable and so it has at last been recognised. It had the highest proportion of vacancies in Year Seven of any Kent school last school year at 59%, My previous article entitled: Leigh Academies Trust to take over (merge) the Brook Learning Trust analyses the issues more fully.

Assuming the closure goes ahead, the site with £15.9 million spent on new premises opened less than two years ago, an astonishing £5.3 million of which went on demolishing property to enable this to go ahead according to the Brook Learning Trust Accounts. This created a school with a capacity of 1020 pupils according to the DfE, but a pupil roll last year of just 256, which will now become vacant. I look at its probable future below.  

Sadly for families, my view is that there is no point in contesting the closure, but to look ahead for the best option for your child, who may well be severely troubled by this decision, on top of the traumas of the last two school years of the coronavirus epidemic.  

Also below: Background; What Next? Mascalls Academy; Alternative Schools for the Future; The Future of the High Weald site if the school is closed; Finally.

I have been highlighting the shortage of secondary school places at key pressure points across the county for some years, and this article looks at current problems for non-selective provision in Gravesham. The Government approved a new school in February, the Gravesend Central School, to ease these pressures although currently it has no site. Instead, KCC has made clear that until and unless the new school arrives, a partial solution to the lack of places is to just keep expanding the six current ones. Even then some children will have to be offered places outside Gravesham, almost certainly at Ebbsfleet Academy, the only NW Kent school with significant vacancies.

Meopham School was completely rebuilt to cater for an intake of 140 in 2018, but its Published Admission Number (PAN) was increased to 200 this September as part of the fix, although the application for Planning Permission has now been withdrawn for the additional permanent provision agreed back in 2019 because of traffic problems.  As a result, temporary accommodation will need to be brought in to house some 350 extra children due to arrive over the next four years. Approval has been sought for an expansion at Thamesview School in 2023 to increase the intake from 180 to 210.  

Update 14 September: I have now published a second article on my Blog Page, looking at various items of background. 

I first covered the issues at SchoolsCompany in an article back in 2014 as it guided Castle Community College in Deal into Special Measures,  along with Lilac Sky Schools (see below). Both of these companies were highly rated by Kent County Council at the time and had contracts to support several schools. The SchoolsCompany Trust subsequently sponsored Castle as an academy in 2016, renaming it as ‘SchoolsCompany Goodwin Academy’, a pretentious title which went with some of the fantastical schemes hatched up by the trust’s CEO, none of which came to fruition, including the non-existent Royal Academy for Construction and Fabrication in Nigeria.  The Trust collapsed in 2018 after existing for just three short years, reportedly being £8 million in debt, £4 million of which had been run up during SchoolsCompany’s management of Castle Community College.  

The government is finally taking action against four of the previous Trustees of the Trust, after three years investigating this financial scandal, although a Report promised a year ago has still not been published. For some reason, they have evaded a direct intervention, even at this late stage. The arm's length and convoluted procedure explained in SchoolsWeek has the government funding the newly appointed sole current Trustee, a Management Consultant with experience in overseeing dissolved companies, to sue previous trustees in an attempt to recover £2.8 million of 'lost public funds’, the remaining millions having been written off. In the intervening three years, according to SchoolsWeek, Elias Achilleos the former Chief Executive appears to have vanished completely.

SchoolsCompany no longer comes under the government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency which is responsible for academies, having had all of its schools removed, and has amazingly become a charity. BBC SW screened an Investigation in February 2020 analysing the financial affairs of SchoolsCompany, to which I contributed. The programme reported that the police were examining the company’s finances to see if fraud had been committed, but we have heard no more of this. 

Update April 2022: It is no surprise that the boast of Rev Steve Chalke, CEO of the Oasis Trust that the Isle of Sheppey Academy had a full intake of 395 pupils for September 2021 is false as I prophesied. The actual intake was 333. 2022 Allocations start off with just 292 offers, so the final number will inevitably fall well below that. 

Update 12 September: Swale Borough Council is holding a meeting on Sheppey open to the public on Tuesday 14th September. On the agenda is an item to discuss the current crisis in secondary school provision, based on the enclosed document. I look at this in more detail below.    

Update 9th September: It has been suggested that the school's GCSE performance this summer may have been a factor in Miss Lee's departure. Interestingly, in his statement to KentOnline (below), Rev Chalke made no mention of these, which would have been a good indicator of the real progress he talks about. 

 The latest Principal of the Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey (OAIOS), Tina Lee suddenly left her post without notice either in July or over the summer holiday according to different reports, and has now been replaced by another new temporary Executive Principal, the eighth leader of the school since it became an academy in 2009.

Miss Lee had already been humiliated last September after Oasis brought in an Executive Principal over her head, but he only lasted a term and it appears that her performance in the interim may not not been sufficient to keep her job. I have written extensively on the failures of the Oasis Trust to turn the school round since it sacked the most successful Principal it has ever had, when it took over OAIOS in 2013 after another Trust had failed with the school. At the foot of this article, you will find a list of some of the previous reports I have written on this ongoing calamity.

According to Kent Online: ‘The Rev Steve Chalke, the founder of Oasis Community Learning, insisted Miss Lee had not left "under a cloud." He said: "The reverse is true. Tina has done a great job. For the first time in years, we have a full intake of Year 7s and are having to use the Sheerness site again. We have also just received a really good letter from Ofsted saying the school is making real progress. We are not 'good' yet but we are heading in the right direction. It takes a long time to turn a school around. For years huge numbers of children have been bussed off the Island every day." These claims are looked at in more detail below. 

Since the start of this website in 2010, and its predecessor from 2004, I have featured information articles listing all academies and academy trusts in Kent and Medway. These were followed by articles on Free Schools (both operational and planned)  and University Technical Colleges. These four articles have had over 200,000 visitors between them, including many from media and other organisations wishing to consult the only published and comprehensive listing of these schools.

I have recently completely revised and updated each of the four articles, and this article reviews their content, drawing out some of the key findings. I also expand on the following paragraph.

The government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency has a rule that ‘Before escalating an academy complaint to us, you should first complain to the academy. You should follow the academy’s complaints procedure. We cannot change an academy’s decision about a complaint. Our role is to make sure the academy handles your complaint properly’, effectively making all academies non-accountable to parental concerns (see below). The Government Paper ‘Building strong academy trusts’ begins ‘Section one sets out the department’s ambition for all schools to be part of strong academy trusts, in strong families of schools’  (of at least 12 schools!). Currently, 81% of the 118 local secondary schools are academies, with just 26 of these in Trusts of 12 or more schools. Meanwhile, the government and KCC appear determined to see through the new but unnecessary secondary Free School in Margate, to be built on a cramped unsuitable site with no room for a Sixth Form.

My best wishes to all who are receiving their GCSE results today, may they be what you wish for.

Most of you will have decided the next step to take in September, be it staying in your own school or transferring to another, for A Level or vocational courses, or a mixture of the two;  leaving to go to college to take a vocational course; part-time college education, along with employment (which may include an apprenticeship) or volunteering more than 20 hours a week. The law now requires all young people in England to continue in education or training until at least their 18th birthday. 

Sadly, other young people will find themselves missing out on their chosen option, and some will change their minds at the last moment. Whilst many doors will now have closed, others do remain open, and I have written several articles exploring these via links through my Information Article on Sixth Form Admissions and Appeals, which opens up into other possibilities, here. Probably most relevant and certainly most popular is my December 2020 article on Sixth Form Courses in Kent and Medway Schools, which offers an extensive analysis of provision, opportunities and movement.

As with A Level, we can expect similar grade inflation this year, biased towards those who have had the most schooling, in school or remotely. This will put increased but unpredictable pressure on many Sixth Form courses, as schools won't have the flexibility of universities to expand to meet increased demand.  

 KCC and the Government have agreed to scrap the proposal completely. See here. 

The planning application for the proposed Park Crescent Academy in Margate has now been published, exposing the utter poverty of the concept. The education case set out for it is almost non-existent, whilst the site is described as being ‘constricted or constrained where space is at a premium’  and is also constrained by being on two distinct levels, with the very limited recreational and sporting outdoor areas dependent on the nearby public  Dane Park Playing Fields. I have covered both these issues extensively in previous articles, most recently ‘The New No Win Park Crescent Academy’, but this article focuses on KCC's justification for the project.

You will find the full planning application here, published in the Kent County Council weekly planning lists for 30th July,  the consultation to run for four weeks during the summer holidays until 28^th August (now extended to 8th October. The most interesting section is the Planning Statement, tucked away inside the series of documents, which sets out the rationale for the project, and reproduced here. My analysis below divides it into two sections: The Education Needs Case; and The Site and Surroundings.

It is the only one of the twelve new secondary schools in Kent and Medway, open or planned since Ebbsfleet Academy in 2013 not to have a Sixth Form, a decision clearly made because of space limitations. Coincidentally, I was also in at the birth of Ebbsfleet Academy, and received assurances at an open meeting from the then KCC Cabinet Member, that the new school would not be built on the current site as it was too small and had no room for a Sixth Form. Ebbsfleet was built there, hasn't a Sixth Form, and has struggled ever since.

I have subsequently included an update exploring Medway Council's forecasting of the dramatic fall in numbers described below. 

There is no doubt that the big news for primary allocations in Medway this year has been the fall of 10% in the number of children being allocated places at local schools, resulting in many more vacancies. All Medway children looking for a local place were offered one, along with a small number living out of the area. In total 3277 places were offered, down from 3447 in 2020 leaving 16% unfilled, well up on previous years. That also means far fewer families were disappointed with the offers they received, with 92% getting their first choice, up from 88% last year. 51 local children were allocated places by Medway Council after they were given none of their choices, well down on previous years, almost certainly having limited these choices to a few popular schools. This fall was forecast, although underestimated, by the Council in its Annual Review of the School Place Planning Strategy in October last year, see new section below, the decline now forecast to continue for each of the next three years.   

The one form entry The Pilgrim School in Rochester is by some way the most primary oversubscribed school in Medway, turning away 35 first choices, even more than the 30 places it offered. Next were the three schools that headed the list last year, Barnsole (down from 49 to 24 first choices disappointed), Academy of Woodlands (down from 27 to 24); and Cliffe Woods (down from 50 to 19), separated by Brompton-Westbrook on 21. St Thomas More Catholic saw the most remarkable change in fortune, having gone from 13 vacancies on allocation last year, to being 14 first choices oversubscribed for 2021 entry.

Not surprisingly, apart from the Hoo Peninsula, all areas saw an increase in the number of unfilled places, most in Chatham (up to 19% from 12%), and Gillingham (up to 17% from 10% in 2020), contributing to the high proportion of satisfied applicants. Nearly two-thirds of the 69 schools had vacancies, way up on the 36 of 2020. Five schools had more than half of their places unfilled on allocation, a situation which, if continued will present them with financial difficulties. 

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

I have discovered that the Governing Body of Fairview Community Primary School has been served with two separate formal Warning Notices about its disgraceful conduct by Medway Council. These along with other correspondence supplied to me by a Freedom of Information Request leaves no doubt that Medway Council needs to take urgent action to dissolve the GB.

The first Warning Notice, issued in January, considered that: ‘In the council’s view there has been a serious breakdown in the way the school is managed or governed.  The second Warning Notice, three months later, contained:  'I am writing to you as the significant concerns to which I referred in the warning notice I issued on 4 January 2021 have not been adequately addressed by the Fairview community primary school governors'. The second also formally warns the Governing Body that if its tough requirements are not met within a strict time limit, Medway Council will ‘consult on the authority’s intention to provide for governing body to consist of interim executive members’, i.e. sack the GB.  The correspondence demonstrates a GB attempting to carry on regardless of these two official notices.

It is difficult to comprehend the arrogance of these people, few with any educational background, who wish to keep control of Fairview Primary when they clearly do not have the competence to do so.  The appointment of an assistant caretaker as the staff governor (with no disrespect to him personally) and no other candidates put forward surely reflects the contempt of the teaching staff for the GB.

I have never in my sixteen years of advising families and others about education issues in Kent and Medway seen anything like the litany of failure described in the second Warning Notice about the conduct of a school Governing Body. 

Warwick Mansell, on his Education Uncovered website, looked extensively at this appointment, including Dr Saxton's 'impeccable' political connections as a qualification for the post. He also drew on several of my articles, to illustrate her unsuitability for the post.

The parliamentary Pre-Appointment Hearing for Dr Jo Saxton as Chief regulator of Ofqual covered many issues relating to the role but for Kent families, those relating to her leadership of Turner Schools between  2017 and 2020 were particularly relevant and illuminating. The questions posed about that leadership by the Labour MP, Kim Johnson were clearly based on my previous article about her appointment here. This looked objectively at Dr Saxton's performance as CEO and focused on three key themes I had raised: Finance, Discipline and the Haemorrhaging of Pupils, which I explore further below. Her performance began and ended with 'I am incredibly proud of the things that the team and I achieved at Turner Schools'.

Quote from Schoolsweek: 'In the past, being a policy adviser to the secretary of state would be seen as a straightforward disqualification for a non-ministerial departmental role like this'.

Update: As well as the four primary school inspections listed below, Ofsted are today (9th July) inspecting Oasis Academy, Isle of Sheppey.

Lynsted and Norton Primary School, in Swale, has been found Inadequate by Ofsted in May in a Report published this week, one of just three Kent primary schools inspected and reported on since the end of lockdown. This follows a remote monitoring inspection in January that found that ‘Leaders and those responsible for governance are taking effective action to provide education in the current circumstances’, which suggests that the remote inspection was itself inadequate. 

Four months later the new Report reads, ‘the curriculum for all pupils is not fit for purpose. It is jumbled and does not set out what knowledge pupils will learn. Some teachers do not have the subject expertise to be able to take confusing plans and turn them into learning that develops and builds pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding successfully. Standards are low…Some teachers’ expectations are low. Assessment has relied on commercial schemes that are not linked to what pupils have studied. As a result, staff do not have a clear understanding of what pupils already know or need to learn next. 

The previous headteacher left suddenly in February after 'Trustees recognise the need to improve their oversight of provision. They have acted robustly since identifying the issues in February 2021' according to the Ofsted report, but clearly too late to avoid this outcome. The school's previous three Ofsted Inspections have all been 'Requires Improvement' and it has changed headteachers after each. A new headteacher has been appointed who will be the seventh in eight years. Not surprisingly, the school is not popular with families, having failed to fill even half of its Published Admission Number of 20 places in any of its Year Groups. Year Six currently has just four pupils and Year One six.  

The biggest news since my previous round-up of academy news in February is that the conversion of The North School and the sponsorship of The Holmesdale School, both to join Swale Academies Trust, is now set to happen for September as all obstacles to academisation have been removed. It also signposts the freedom for all of the other eight PFI schools to convert if they wish. These include Royal Harbour Academy in Thanet, a maintained school despite its title, for whom government approval to proceed has now been given under the sponsorship of Coastal Academies Trust.

In March, Worth Primary School joined the Deal Education Alliance for Learning Trust. In April, Chartham Primary and St Stephen’s Infants in Canterbury came together to create the Inspira Academy Trust, Sandwich Infants joined Aquila, the Diocese of Canterbury Academy Trust, and Fleetdown Primary in Dartford joined the Galaxy Trust, all five as converter academies. These take the proportion of Kent primary schools having academised to 43%, with the government proposing to put more pressure on schools to convert (see below). Mundella Primary School in Folkestone has had its application to join the Verita Trust in Deal approved and it is proposed that Will Adams Centre, an Alternative Provision School in Medway will join the Alternative Learning Trust.  Approval for the controversial new Free Secondary School in Thanet is further delayed.

Other items look at: Halling and Fairview Primaries in Medway; the proposed merger of All Hallows and Stoke primaries on the Hoo Peninsula; Kent Catholic Schools  Partnership; other recommendations by the SE and South London Headteacher Board; Copperfield Academy's Good Ofsted; and expanding academies. 

The article concludes with a look at new government policies working towards seeing all schools becoming academies, with several local mentions.

The comment below from Former FA SLT is well worth reading to understand the sentiments of those caught up in the issues created by Turner Schools at Folkestone Academy. 

My previous article about Dr Jo Saxton and her nomination as the preferred candidate to be the new chief regulator of Ofqual has clearly struck home at Turner Schools, with the Trust issuing a press release explicitly attempting to refute my evidence of its problems. Unfortunately, this is factually wrong on most points, which is strange as in his accompanying letter to staff the CEO warns that ‘disinformation and falsehoods are being spread about our schools’ (I have never seen any of this).

In particular, quoted data about school exclusions is wrong according to official KCC figures, whilst the statement about the number of pupils joining Folkestone Academy in September appears to be based on a false manipulation of the data to hide the fact that fewer families than ever before want to join the school, or else the school simply doesn't understand how the admission system works. 

The press release covers my themes about  GCSE performance, stability in leadership teams, and finance, all central to the concerns I expressed in the article. It also wrongly claims that a number of Folkestone schools had been failing for many years before Turner Schools took over. Whilst I remain unaware of any of the claimed disinformation or falsehoods being spread about Turner Schools, t am completely bewildered as to why the Trust seeks to go down this route. As pointed out before, I am always more than happy to make corrections to any factual errors in my articles if they are pointed out.

Warwick Mansell's Education Uncovered analysed Dr Saxton's appointment, drawing extensively on KentAdvice articles. 

Update from Pre Appointment Hearing (24 minutes in) for the Post of Chief Regulator of Ofqual: In answer to a question about criticisms of her leadership of  Turner Schools: 'I am incredibly proud of the things that the team and I achieved at Turner Schools' In terms of specifics: Finance - we saved many thousands of pounds.  Problems were all down to a temporary move of the Sixth Form into temporary accommodation (£10 million); There was a year of particularly high exclusions in one of the secondary schools when there was a serious behaviour difficulty. They stopped. That was a temporary measure to reset behaviour for learning'. In response to a question about Folkestone Academy hemorrhaging students. 'It was a very challenging school when I found it that had really lost its way. Working with the Local Authority we agreed to open a new school nearby and would balance them to be two schools of equal size, one putting pupils on a pathway to apprenticeships and vocational learning, and the other success without selection, more conventional approach. So absolutely no hemorrhaging of pupils. In answer to 'so everything is hunky-dory in Turner Schools'. 'I am incredibly proud of everything the Turner Schools have achieved'.     

See Press Release from Turner Schools challenging the facts put forward below, and my riposte, here. 

Dr Jo Saxton, erstwhile Chief Executive of Turner Schools, the struggling Academy Trust set up by her in Folkestone, is Gavin Williamson’s preferred candidate for the key national education post of Chief Regulator of Ofqual. On the surface, she is an ideal candidate with a powerful background of holding important positions, so the chasm between her rhetoric and the outcomes at Turner Schools may fit in with the DfE’s needs in the role.  

It is hard to know where to start a performance analysis of her time in Folkestone, but this article concludes with links to the eighteen articles I have written about it, which are replete with startling factual material about the Trust and its four schools. My final article on her period in office begins: For the last three and a half years, Turner Schools has been one of my most prolific themes for articles on this website, aided and abetted by its CEO and founder Dr Jo Saxton, whose passion for promoting the Trust (named after her grandmother) and making fantastical claims for its performance and future prospects was simply breathtaking, as demonstrated in my incomplete collection of slogans, mottos, motivating messages and false claims.

You will find a list of Turner Schools ‘achievements’ during Dr Saxton’s leadership here, with some of the most striking repeated below and others in the list of news items at the foot of this article.

Quote from Schoolsweek: 'In the past, being a policy adviser to the secretary of state would be seen as a straightforward disqualification for a non-ministerial departmental role like this'

There is an immediate crisis of accommodation in the three Sittingbourne non-selective (N/S) schools, which are overwhelmed with families trying to access them and avoid Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey. I gave a summary in my article on 2021 admissions to Kent N/S schools here, but now have further detail. For families, the chilling news is that by 2023, even when all of the vacant Oasis places are filled with Sittingbourne children, there won’t be enough Year Seven school spaces for local children across the area. KCC’s vague solution is to ‘continue to press for access to the North Sittingbourne (Quinton Road) development to establish a new 6FE secondary school to meet the future need from the population growth and new housing developments’, but with no sense of urgency nor sign of achieving anything.

I am now told that KCC forgot to allocate some children with Education and Health Care Plans to Swale schools before allocations were made this year, which is the correct procedure, but instead gave them to the Sittingbourne schools afterwards. The result is that numbers became even more swollen, especially at Fulston Manor which received eleven extra pupils in this way. Unsurprisingly with these pressures, not one of the 68 appeals heard for a place at Fulston Manor was successful and, looking at the tremendously strong appeal defence for Westlands, I doubt if there will be much more success there, or indeed at The Sittingbourne School.

The article concludes with a look at the delays in setting up England's first Secure School, to be run by Oasis in Rochester. 

Many in the education service will still remember Simon Webb, newly elected County Councillor for  Maidstone Rural West in the recent Council elections, from his previous roles working for the Council. He was Area Education Officer for North West Kent for 13 years, and then became Principal Primary Adviser for the Council in April 2013, having been, in the words to me of a senior Officer, 'moved to where he would do less harm'. In fact, his brief tenure of this post was even more controversial, only partly because of the way he publicly marched headteachers who he considered were underperforming, out of their schools into suspension or gardening leave, without notice. It was no surprise when he suddenly 'left' KCC service eighteen months later, taking up a temporary part-time role as Consultant to Jane Porter, Headteacher of Whitehill Primary School, having previously supported her at various schools with which she was involved. She installed him in an office in the school although staff were not clear of his purpose in being there, but she was later permanently banned from being a teacher because of professional misconduct. I was able to follow Mr Webb's later advisory roles in Suffolk and Essex before he became Chief Learning Officer at Connected Learning, a small primary school academy trust also in Essex on a salary of £95,000. He left this in January this year after just under four years in post.    

Last summer I wrote a series of articles warning that unless changes were made to the forthcoming Kent grammar school selection process, the pass rate amongst pupil premium children and those from ‘ordinary families’ would fall because of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on learning in primary schools. The Education Cabinet Member at the time claimed that Kent County Council would do all that was practical and possible to address all forms of disadvantage. This proved a completely empty promise, and nothing was done, apart from a delay in testing. 

As a direct result of the failure to act, the proportion of children in receipt of Pupil Premium and those in East Kent who passed the Kent Test plummeted along with the proportion of Kent state school children taking the Test, boys in general underperformed, passes for children from private schools and out of county increased, and 13 East and Mid Kent grammar schools had empty places on allocation in March. You will find the evidence for all these facts traceable back from a previous article. Social mobility, one of the principles of the selective school system which is already damaged by tutoring and private cramming schools, will inevitably take another knock in next school year’s assessment process unless the Education Department changes its attitudes and approach to selection.  There are now a new Cabinet Member for Education and a new Director of Education in the county, so the opportunity is there for such a change, necessary if there is not to be further inequality entrenched, with this year's cohort suffering nearly two years of serious disruption in school and learning by the time of the Test in September/October. 

To be precise, unless there are changes in the selective assessment procedure we shall see another and increasing betrayal of the more disadvantaged Kent children looking towards a grammar school place for the second year running, despite the valiant efforts of so many teachers to minimise that disadvantage. There is a brief note on the situation in Medway, below. 

The failure by the Cliffe Woods Academy Trust to even notice the meltdown at Halling Primary School in Medway after it appointed a totally unsuitable headteacher to the school, has resulted in the Trust being wound up. Its two schools are being absorbed into the Aletheia Anglican Academies Trust (AAAT), subject to consultation, which in my opinion is the best possible outcome for the children of the two schools.

 The Trust has sent a dishonest letter to parents presenting this as a wonderful opportunity, which it is, whilst completely ignoring the events of the past eighteen months that show it is incapable of operating in its present form and have forced it into this position.. Whilst I forecast the re-brokering of the school in my previous article, I neither anticipated the extent of the changes nor that AAAT, a Church of England Trust, would take on two secular schools in this way, although it does reflect government policy to bring Trusts together in larger groupings and is a warning to others to keep their house in order – Fairview Primary School and The Westbrook Trust take particular note of my final paragraph. 

Update: A comment posted under a previous article claims the Vice-Chairman of Governors was not informed by his Chair of the shocking criticism of the governing body in notes of a meeting of staff convened by Medway Council, and dismissed them as either false or held by a small minority. 

The Governors of Fairview Community Primary School, the third-largest primary school in Medway, have appointed Mrs Karin Tillett as headteacher after a highly controversial recruitment process, the background to which is explained in previous articles, most recently here and entitled: ‘How not to Appoint a Headteacher’. This includes a series of ever-changing arrangements for recruitment and for criteria laid down for the qualities of the new headteacher, as governors sought to narrow down the ‘really strong field of current headteachers with relevant experience, NPQH and CPD/research’.  In the event just two candidates were interviewed, one not fitting these criteria. 

I have been commenting on education matters in Kent and Medway for over 15 years, but have never seen a rogue governing body like this before. In my opinion, it ignores the welfare of its pupils and staff in pursuit of a narrow agenda to join a small moderately performing academy trust although as a maintained school it is still accountable to Medway Council which doesn’t appear to care, perhaps because it just wants to see the back of the school. The Governing Body and Medway Council have chosen to ignore formal complaints about the headship appointment procedures and academisation

I do not apologise for covering the events at Fairview in such detail; it is a unique and in my eyes gripping story of how an out of control governing body can behave, apparently with impunity, which has been avidly followed by a large number of readers of this site. 

There has been a fall of some 400 in the number of children offered places in Reception classes of the 438 Kent primary schools in April, since last year's allocations, reflecting a dip in the birth rate five years previously. 180 additional places have been added at new schools which joined the co-ordinated admission scheme this year. As a result of both of these factors, pressure on places has eased with 13% unfilled, up from 11% last year. Dartford town is the area with fewest vacancies in 2021, having just 3% of its spaces unfilled. It is followed by Sevenoaks town with 6%, then rural Canterbury, rural Gravesham, urban Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells with 7%.  Nine schools have 60% or more of their places empty, only one more than last year.

The most oversubscribed schools are Brent in Dartford, and Great Chart in Ashford, with 76 and 65 disappointed first choices respectively, both schools being regularly towards the top of the table. These are followed by: Claremont, Tunbridge Wells (54); Gateway (42) & Our Ladies Catholic (41) both in Dartford; Chilton, Thanet (39); Allington, Maidstone (38), Bobbing Village, Swale (35); St John’s CofE, Maidstone & Holy Trinity & St John’s CofE, Thanet (both 33); and Sandgate, Folkestone (32).

The number of children with no school of their choice has fallen to 398 from 457 last year. 199 children from outside Kent have been offered places in local schools, including 85 from Medway.

 I look more closely at each of these matters and across each District below, together with allocations to Junior Schools.

Update 19th May: Due to the level of interest in this post, governors have decided not to re-advertise see below. Short-listing has already taken place. 

Shortly after the process to appoint a new headteacher at Fairview Community Primary Primary was supposed to have ended, Chris Woods, Vice-Chair of Governors sent a letter to parents. In spite of several broken promises by governors to keep Fairview parents regularly informed of important matters, the only hard information provided was that he would meet with Rebecca Smith, Head of Education at Medway Council (but see below) to 'finalise the strategic direction of the school' (is this code for joining The Westbrook Trust?). He doesn’t even mention the headship fiasco, described in a previous article, even though the process was halted immediately before interviews for the post took place.

 We learn that he is ‘doing this in my spare time, alongside a very demanding job’ also offered as an excuse elsewhere in the letter and separately to staff, so surely someone else with more time ought to have taken over the role at this critical period!  Meanwhile, a very different letter has been sent to staff, also discussed below, which reveals the confusion, contradictions, and indecision about the headship and academisation, as governors appear to be trying to pursue their own agenda. 

Between them, the two letters once again confirm that this is a rogue governing body, behaving disgracefully, although its actions now appear to be endorsed by Medway Council, which is several times used to prop up decisions. Surely, it is now the responsibility of Medway Council to dissolve the Governing Body and replace it by an Interim Executive Board, one of the few sanctions they have available. 

Comment on the loss at the election of Richard Whiting and Richard Long, past and recent Cabinet Members for Education to follow when a new appointment is made. 

One of Kent County Council’s major responsibilities is education, so I have surveyed the local political parties literature to find out their priorities before Thursday's Council election. Of particular interest to me are the catch-up arrangements for children disadvantaged by Covid, the failed Kent SEND department as described in the 2019 Ofsted Report, the shortage of non-selective places in various parts of the county, the flawed grammar school selection process penalising disadvantaged Kent children, and policy with regard to the fresh government academisation drive.

The Conservatives, in their eight-page leaflet consider that: ‘When development does happen, our infrastructure first policy means that schools, GP surgeries, open spaces and transport links are planned before housing’. Otherwise silence, although I have tried several times without response for more information such as a manifesto. In other words, and sadly, Kent Conservatives do not appear to think education important enough to ask voters to pass an opinion on their past record, nor on any plans for the future.

The following article is based on a contribution from a serving Kent headteacher.

Who’s the Boss? may have been a sitcom from the eighties but, at the moment, we could be forgiven for trying to work out what is happening within Kent Education Leadership. 

Headteachers used to the nature and level of support provided by David Adams whilst he was AEO for the south of Kent were, on the whole I believe, pleased to see him take up the position of Interim Director of Education when Keith Abbott moved on. However, they now have to learn the ways of a permanent post holder in the form of Christine McInnes. Christine, formerly Tower Hamlets Director of Education and Partnerships, with a background in Special Education, formally introduced herself last week along with Mark Walker, ‘recently’ appointed Director of SEND in the first of their joint newsletters.

The major news is that the new Leigh Academy Rainham (LAR) is opening in September offering 240 places, 60 more than the planned 180, whilst the second new non-selective (N/S) school coming on stream, the Maritime Academy to be based in Strood will not open until at least 2022, several years behind schedule, see below.

As the new Rainham School is not in the Medway Co-ordinated Admissions scheme for its first year, many parents will have applied for and been allocated two schools, so there will be up to 240 vacancies appearing at the 17 existing schools for September, as parents release one of their offers. This is nearly 10% of the total, so that some schools, primarily the least popular and those in the east of Medway will see a large number of vacancies opening up. Add on to that, the 70 or so children likely to be successful at Medway grammar school appeals. What then happens next is what I call the ‘churning’ effect, where the more popular schools that lose pupils then fill up again from ones further down the line, probably working from east to west. It is therefore important that, if you haven't been offered your highest choice N/S school, you apply to go on the waiting list for this and any other schools higher on your preference list than the one you have been offered. Last year there were also 135 admission appeals heard at five Medway non-selective schools, 53 of those being successful, taking pupils from less popular schools. 

 I understand that Medway Council, which is also handling the process for LAR, has required parents to accept just one offer and is writing to those with two to require them to relinquish one. I believe the current table of offers below, although some way from the final outcome, still gives a reasonable guide to outcomes, identifying the schools at both ends of the range.

 I also look below at a range of other matters that have a bearing on the take-up of places, including ooc offers, appeals, fair banding, and concluding with a look at the outcomes for each individual school.

The pattern of offers at Medway grammar schools for entry in September closely follows that for September 2020, which I looked at previously here. All schools apart from Chatham have filled. The main changes in popularity are the significant falls in first choices at Chatham, Holcombe and Rochester (all regularly featured in news items on this site). Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School (The Math) continues to be by far the most oversubscribed grammar school, turning away 108 first choices. There were also reductions in girls’ places at Rochester Grammar, which took some £3 million pounds from the Government Expansion Fund in 2018, to create additional places in exchange for a greater priority for children attracting Pupil Premium, and Chatham Grammar.

By coincidence, the number of Medway children found selective after the Medway selection process for entry to grammar school in 2021 was almost identical to that for the previous year with 386 boys (385 in 2019) and 438 girls in both years found suitable for grammar school.  This continues the annual bias towards girls being found selective. In total there are 505 places for girls but only 355 for boys available this year in the five single-sex Medway grammar schools, as well as 235 at the co-educational Rainham Mark Grammar. There are places for every local Medway grammar qualified pupil but, as in previous years, chances at appeal for local boys in any school are likely to be very low. 210 children living outside Medway have been offered local grammar school places out of 1045 in total. This amounts to 20%, a fifth of all the places offered, see below.

Update 19th May: The headteacher, Ms Selmi has now resigned as headteacher, further information to follow. To clarify, the Aletheia Trust has been engaged to carry out an investigation on behalf of the Regional Schools Commissioner, not write a Report for parents. However, I anticipate the main findings will be shared.  

Update, 19th April: Welcome news: It appears that Mrs Woolmer,  the much-loved Head of Reception at Halling who left the school at the end of last term, has been persuaded to return by the new management. This morning, the first day of term, she opened the school gate for children. What an important signal that things are changing for the better. 

I begin with an apology to all those followers who have no special interest in Medway primary schools, although my recent articles about Fairview and Halling both have considerably wider implications than for the two schools themselves. At Fairview, as far I can establish, this is the first time that a Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) has rejected an application for academy status anywhere in the country in recent years. It now looks increasingly likely that this decision was primarily because the RSC recognised a rogue Governing Body, as explained here.

However, this article is about the second school, Halling Primary, part of the Cliffe Woods Academy Trust. After the RSC had arranged for an investigation into the running of the school at the request of the Trust, this took place in the last week of the Easter Term and, on Friday last, parents were sent a joint letter from the Chairs of the Cliffe Woods Trust and of the Halling Governing Body. This letter informed them that the headteacher of the school ‘has taken some time away from school for personal reasons’, and the responsibilities residing with the headteacher position will be shared, at least through Term Five, by two other primary school headteachers.

I have documented the issues through three previous articles, most recently here, and so this article unpicks some of the content of the letter. It is unlikely we will be told the precise reasons for Miss Selmi’s absence from the school, although we know it will be for at least the next term.

Update 2: The comment below asks about the authenticity of the Report in this article. I have responded below, as the reported claim by the Vice-Chairman not to know of its existence is astonishing, along with excerpts from several other emails via the same FOI to Medway Council.  

Update: You will find a further analysis of the Headship appointment and other matters here. 

I have now been given correspondence through an FOI request to Medway Council that shreds the competence and integrity of the Governing Body (GB) of Fairview Community Primary School. It shows that this would have been the central problem with the Fairview application to become an academy, as part of the Westbrook Trust, last year.

This is best illustrated by the report of a School Challenge and Improvement Visit in March 2020, conducted by a Medway Council officer, although the issues recur in various emails. You will find the full report here, with a major excerpt below but, in summary, a meeting with 17 members of staff raised multiple issues about relationships between them and governors. These demonstrated that the GB was failing them, the school and the local community on all counts.

Other correspondence covers matters such as conflicts of interest, failure to follow procedures to the extent that the Chairman was wrongly elected at a meeting that was improperly convened, and evidence of members of the GB trying to force the school to join the Westbrook Trust, all with an evident complete lack of interest in the views of staff and the local community. I have never before come across such a siege mentality, arrogance and level of incompetence as in the Fairview governing body. The continued failure to communicate with parents as promised emphasises this failure.  

Remarkably, the school appears to continue to operate successfully and smoothly, run by its three leaders from the Compass Partnership of Schools, independently of the Governing Body, although all three are scheduled to leave in the summer when the Compass contract expires. 

There is good news for most Kent families applying for reception class places in primary schools this year with 89.2% of families offered their first choice school, slightly up on the 2020 figure. Whilst, sadly, there are still 398 children with no school of their choice, this is the lowest number for at least the last ten years.

97.7% of families have been offered one of their three choices, the same percentage as in 2018, but higher than other recent years.  Most of these details are contained in the 2021 Kent Primary Press Release.  However, one factor behind the good news is the fall in the number of Kent children offered places at a Kent primary school down to 17,116, the lowest figure since 2014.

In Medway, more than 91% of children have again been offered their first choice school, the highest percentage for at least eight years (surely worth mentioning in the press release!) with over 97% being offered a school on their application form. In total there was a fall of 148 in the number of pupils offered places from 2020, with a total of 3491. Every child from Medway who applied on time was offered a place. There were 112 applicants from outside Medway. Most of these details are contained in the  2021 Medway Primary Press Release, very thin as usual on detail.   

You will also find below information and advice on possible next steps, together with appeals, also below and here. In summary, if your school is one of the overwhelming majority where Infant Class Legislation applies, I am afraid that chances of success are negligible. 

There was only a small increase of 37 in the number of Kent primary pupils allocated places at secondary schools this year but with 267 additional secondary places created. This leaves 724 empty spaces, a 5.1% vacancy rate overall, well up on last year's 3.5%. As a result, across the county, there were few extra pressure points in Non-Selective (N/S) schools. Key areas were Canterbury, Gravesham and Sevenoaks which had just five vacancies across their 15 schools, but Ashford, Dartford, Swale and Thanet all have localised problems created by polarisation of choices. Unfortunately, misleading information by KCC appears to hide a large shortage of places in Tunbridge Wells (TW). The converse problem exists in Thanet, where KCC is promoting an unnecessary new school in Margate.

The unpopularity of Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey with its 108 Local Authority Allocations has propelled Fulston Manor and Westlands to the top of the oversubscription table.  These two schools are followed by Knole Academy, Meopham School, St George's CofE Foundation (Broadstairs) and the recently opened Stone Lodge School. Most of the others were also present in the table last year, apart from newly arrived Canterbury Academy, the new School of Science and Technology Maidstone (SSTM), The Lenham School and Skinners Kent Academy. 

There are 393 OOC children offered places in non-selective schools across the county, Knole Academy, Homewood School and Bennett Memorial Diocesan School all offering over 50 places to OOC children, with 252 travelling the other way 

The schools struggling to attract pupils are also broadly the same as last year, in most cases propped up by Local Authority Allocations of children who have not been offered more popular schools. 

I explore all these matters further, below, together with a survey of allocation patterns in each of Kent's Districts, together with changes in the admissions rules for Church schools affected by Covid. 

Update 18th April: The Disgraceful Behaviour of the Governors of Fairview Primary School (Part Two)

This article considers the appointment of a new Headteacher for Fairview Community Primary School, a process that is lasting for just three and a half weeks, from posting the advertisement to concluding the interviews at a school whose status in September is unknown. The only way this is not madness is if Medway Council and the Governing Body already know who they are going to appoint. Why would anyone else apply?

In my previous article about Fairview a month ago, I reported on a letter from the Board, dated 24^th February, that ‘Governors will now carry out a ‘period of reflection in which they will take this opportunity to respond to the most frequently raised themes highlighted, including Academic Standards, transparency and the question of why The Westbrook Trust with more regular communication’. 

This regular communication amounts to a brief letter from the Chairman of Governors, dated the last day of term, informing parents that a permanent headteacher is to be appointed, without mentioning any of these promised themes. The job advertisement fails to mention the rather important point that the school is planning to academise with the Westbrook Trust and so the successful candidate could be removed if their face doesn’t fit. This is either gross incompetence or alternatively, with interviews set for just three days after the closing date for applications, the whole thing is a disgraceful fix! This article finishes with four important questions to which parents need to know the answers. 

The pattern of grammar school allocations reveals chickens coming home to roost – but never mind the children. I have regularly written since last June about the unfairness of the Kent selection procedure that would be created by the coronavirus effects on schools unless changes were made, and so it has proved. My previous article on the Kent Test demonstrated a built-in bias towards children in West Kent and girls as a result, with further discrimination against children attracting Pupil Premium, suggesting that children from ‘ordinary families’ would also suffer.

Now, every West and North West Kent grammar is full, and all but one are oversubscribed with first choices, even though between them they have added on an extra  184 Year Seven places from last year. At the other end of the scale, there are 257 empty spaces in 13 East and Mid Kent schools, up from 123 in six schools in 2020.

The starkest example of the shift is at Maidstone Grammar which turned away 60 grammar qualified first choices last year, but has 14 vacancies for 2021 admission. At the far end of the county, Sir Roger Manwood’s which had 34 first choices rejected in 2020, now has 20 vacancies.

For children attracting pupil premium, 10% of the girls were found selective by the 2020 Kent selection procedure, and 7% of the boys, in total 8.2%, a fall of 17% from the 2019 figure.

There is an increase of 51 children from outside Kent to 466 in total, were offered places in Kent grammar schools, the main rises being at Gravesend, Maidstone, Maidstone Girls, Mayfield and Tunbridge Wells Boys, partly compensated by a sharp fall at Weald. 

I look below at the outcomes by area in more detail, including levels of oversubscription and vacancies. You will find full details of the Kent test process for 2021 entry here. 

Update on even fresher and major developments, most recently today, 19th April: 

A comment on my previous article about Halling Primary begins: 

 Meanwhile, the Chair of Trustees considers that ‘The atmosphere within the school is now one of great enthusiasm and determination'. A front-page article in the Medway Messenger on Thursday has stoked the fires featuring the same Chair claiming ‘staff not up to the challenge’. The Trust has called a meeting of Halling parents for next week, although this is primarily to introduce the new staff - should be interesting. At the meeting, the Trust will also discuss the adversarial and threatening Social Media Policy.

Ex-members of staff have now lodged formal complaints about the shocking public attack on them, which appears to be an attempt to cover up the resignation of over three-quarters of the teaching staff mid-year. Those departing next month include the highly respected Deputy Headteacher and Head of Early Years, both leaving 'for personal reasons' with no job to go to at present, together with support staff. Several of the Teaching Assistants have chosen to leave in the next few days before the end of term. 

All this is far away from the school’s highly publicised values of

Compassion • Integrity • Thankfulness • Respect • Resilience

This article follows on from my previous Academy and Free School News February 2021 Part One, and looks at other developments of new Academies and Trusts, together with various items of Academy news. As well as those mentioned in my previous article, Leigh Academy Rainham is opening in September, other new schools on stream including: Alkerden All Through School, Ebbsfleet, planned for 2023; Barton Manor School, Canterbury, opening in September 2022: Chilmington Green Secondary, Ashford, planned for 2022 but delayed; Maritime Academy, Strood, opening in 2022; Park Cresent Academy, Margate, planned for 2023; new Special School on Sheppey planned for 2022.

The Potential in Everyone Academy Trust and The Village Academy comprising ten schools between them are merging, although a bid by Brockhill Park Performing Arts College & The Abbey School (Faversham), to merge was turned down.

Other items looked at are about Infant and Junior School Trusts, the Brooke Learning Trust, The Kent Catholic Schools Partnership, Fairview Community Primary School and Halling Primary School.

With too much news arriving and too little time, I have decided to publish this item now before items become out of date, with a third instalment to come. 

Update November 2021: Closure of High Weald Academy is announced.

Plans have been announced for Leigh Academies Trust to merge with (take over) the struggling Brook Learning Trust. I have regularly looked at the failures of the three Brook schools for too many years: Ebbsfleet Academy; Hayesbrook Academy in Tonbridge; and High Weald Academy in Cranbrook. Although I have doubts about such large Trusts, the children attending these schools and those who will follow them would surely have a much better future under Leigh Academies Trust. 

I look in some detail below at the many challenges facing Leigh if they follow this takeover through, but this is a very thorough and professional organisation and its leaders will surely have carried out due diligence and know the size of the task before going ahead. 

Assuming this takeover goes through, the Leigh Academy Trust will be running 15 secondary schools (with the opening of the new Leigh Academy Rainham in September), 15 primary schools and two Special Schools. These are mainly in Dartford, Maidstone, Medway and the Weald of Kent around Hub schools, regularly being allocated new Free Schools as they have come on stream, and other existing schools through Conversion or Sponsorship, as set out in the table below.

Back in 2017 the Trust's auditors expressed significant doubts about whether it could continue to operate, as confirmed by the Trustees. The warning was repeated the next year, but now Brook Learning Trust's response was to deny everything, change auditors so that there were no further doubts expressed, and sit tight until the money ran out, which appears to be the case.  

This article is triggered by the Medway Council Press Release on secondary school Allocations, which as usual contains an absolute minimum of information.  In summary: Of the 3,431 Medway children offered places, more than 96 per cent have been awarded a place at one of their preferred secondary schools. 4,459 secondary school applications were processed, including 1,028 children from outside Medway. Updated 22nd October following a fresh FOI request: 78.9% of Medway pupils were awarded their first choice, 12% their second choice, with 126 children awarded places through the Local Authority Allocations scheme, the lowest figure for at least four years. 

The major change in admission patterns this year is also referred to in the Press Release. This is the opening of the new eight form entry Leigh Academy Rainham for September, offering 240 places from 514 applicants, and well above its Planned Admission Number of 180, which will have a major impact on other schools situated in the eastern part of Medway, and explored below. As a result, applications to the school are not counted in the numbers above or in the table below, although most parents will also have put in an application through the coordinated scheme. The official data is therefore not correct, with up to 240 children withdrawing from their allocated places at schools within the scheme.

The other piece of information I have obtained recently is the performance of Pupil Premium children in the Medway Test, below, showing a fall of over a quarter in the number passing, which will follow through into grammar school allocations. You will find the parallel article about Kent secondary allocations here. 

May I send my very best wishes to everyone involved with next week’s national return to school, which will start on Monday for some children, but is staggered through the week for others.

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