Report on proposals for secondary school expansions for ...



HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

CABINET

MONDAY, 4 APRIL 2011 AT 2.00P.M.

PROPOSALS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL EXPANSIONS

Report of the Director Children, Schools and Families

Report Authors: Simon Newland (Tel: 01992 555739)

Pauline Davis (Tel: 01992 555865)

Executive Member: Richard Thake, Education & Skills

Local Members: J R Barfoot, R H Beeching, J Lloyd, L J Newlyn,

C B Wyatt-Lowe

1. Purpose of Report

1. To enable Cabinet to consider a number of secondary school projects linked to current and likely future need for school places.

2. Summary

2.1 The report flags the need to prepare a major strategy document pertaining to the expansion of secondary school places, to be submitted to the Education & Skills Cabinet Panel and Cabinet for consideration in the autumn. In the interim, decisions are required to allow smaller, but nonetheless important, projects to be taken forward in Bishops Stortford, Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage, which will allow adequate school places to be provided over the next few years.

3. Recommendations

3.1 The Education & Skills Cabinet Panel will consider a report on this item of business at its meeting on 1 April 2011. The recommendation being made to the Panel is that the Panel recommend:-

“That Cabinet:-

(i) notes the position regarding secondary places in selected areas, as set out in Appendix 1 of the report, and the intention to formulate a strategy for expansion of secondary school provision for consideration in autumn 2011;

(ii) confirms the strategy for provision of secondary school places in Bishops Stortford and Sawbridgeworth, as set out in paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6 of the report, and agrees, at this stage, to provide £200,000 to Leventhorpe School to support its expansion by 12 admission places;

(iii) agrees in principle to provide capital funding to contribute to the costs of refurbishment and adaptation of Astley Cooper School to allow it to move to Academy status as a Kunskapsskolan Academy;

(iv) agrees to publish statutory notices setting out the County Council’s intention to revoke a previously agreed statutory proposal to move Thomas Alleyne School to Great Ashby; and

v) confirms the existing proposal to allocate the Heathcote School site to Barnwell and Greenside Schools, on the closure of Heathcote School.”

3.2 The Panel’s recommendation to Cabinet will be reported orally at the meeting and circulated to Members in the Order Sheet.

4. Background

The Overarching Demand For Secondary School Places

4.1 The Education & Skill Cabinet Panel and Cabinet received reports in December 2009 on the demand and supply of secondary school places as part of the ’Meeting the Rising Demand for School Places’ strategy.

4.2 Longer term demand is also being looked at in conjunction with each district council as part of the spatial planning for their areas, taking into account known demography and the potential pupil yield from new housing targets.

4.3 Medium term growth in demand for secondary school places will require a programme of expansion or new school proposals to meet it. It is proposed that officers prepare a draft strategy and programme for consideration in the autumn.

4.4 Some action should be taken before that, however, in order to meet a short term need or to respond to more pressing circumstances, for example in Bishops Stortford and Sawbridgeworth. In addition, there will be a need to adjust plans for the provision of places in Stevenage as a consequence of Building Schools for the Future (BSF) decisions. The rest of this report deals with relatively urgent actions. The position regarding secondary school places in the following areas is set out in Appendix 1 to the report.

Bishops Stortford and Sawbridgeworth

4.5 The County Council’s strategy for meeting the demand for school places has been to support The Bishops Stortford High School for Boys and The Herts & Essex High School for Girls in their plans to relocate and co-locate the two schools to a new site in Whittington Way in Bishops Stortford. This project would provide new buildings fit for the 21st century and afford the opportunity to expand the schools by a total additional 45 places (1.5 forms of entry (f.e.)) at the point of their move. It would also provide the opportunity for further expansion of up to an additional 4 f.e. should the need arise at some point in the future.

4.6 The County Council has evaluated the proposal in relation to the demand for places in the area to accompany the schools’ planning application in October 2010. The application was refused and the schools are submitting an appeal. The County Council will be required to give evidence in any appeal hearing and additional revenue expenditure will be required to support the preparatory work required; it is proposed that the County Council continues to fund the costs incurred by the schools in taking forward their application on the same basis as has been the case to date.

4.7 Part of that strategy involved the potential need for places at Leventhorpe School, at which 12 places can be made available initially. A delay in the provision of additional places at the two single sex schools suggests that it would be appropriate to seek the additional 12 admission places at Leventhorpe as soon as practicable. Provision of the necessary additional places requires capital investment, and it is proposed that £200,000 be provided to the school in recognition of this; with the certainty provided by this allocation the school would feel able to accommodate an additional 12 Year 7 pupils from this coming September (2011).

4.8 Without these 12 places, surplus capacity will drop to 18 places in 2012, with a deficit of 1 in 2013. Given uncertainty in forecasting this is undesirably tight.

Hemel Hempstead, Astley Cooper School

9. Expected growth modelling in this town suggests that all current secondary schools can expect to be full in year seven from the later part of this decade and two further forms of entry may then be required. Currently there is considerable spare capacity in The Astley Cooper School due to adverse local perceptions. However, the child population around this school is denser than in most other parts of the town and currently large numbers of students are travelling out of the area to other schools.

10. The County Council’s School Standards and Effectiveness team have carried out considerable work with the school to try to improve standards and hence change perceptions. The standards attained have been higher for the past two years and above the national floor targets whereas in previous years they were below.

11. The County Council’s strategy now to secure the future of this school and sustain its potential to accommodate future growth in numbers is to seek its conversion to academy status. Negotiations have taken place with the governing body and they support this proposal. An academy provider company, Kunskapsskolan, has been working with the school and officers for several months now and has agreed in principle to be the sponsors for this conversion to academy status; because of its current relatively low standards and Ofsted judgement that it is only a satisfactory school, the school can only become an academy if sponsored by an approved provider.

12. Kunskapsskolan is a successful company that runs a large number of schools in Sweden and has recently opened three academies in England and is in negotiation to open a charter school in New York.

13. The company brings a very interesting and unique approach to teaching and learning based upon encouraging and developing independence in learners, through a highly personalised approach to provision. A Hertfordshire group of officers, members and teachers has visited a number of Kunskapsskolan schools in Sweden.

14. For Kunskapsskolan to implement its unique style of learning, considerable building alterations will need to be made and at the same time it will be necessary and cost effective to address many of the inherent condition issues in the school. This will require capital investment from the County Council. Kunskapsskolan is operating on a not for profit basis and will not go forward with this project without capital investment.

15. It is hoped that the capital investment in Astley Cooper can be met through a joint funding arrangement between the County Council and the Department for Education (DfE). The absolute minimum investment needed to take this project forward now is a total of £6m, but that will require future second phase of investment of another £1.5m in about 5 years time to complete the growth of the school back to a full 6f.e. Economies of scale could apply if all of the work is completed in one phase.

16. Discussions are underway with the DfE regarding a contribution to costs from DfE, but it is expected that a contribution will also be required from the County Council. Cabinet’s approval in principle to a contribution from the County Council is requested to allow these discussions to be taken forward.

Stevenage

17. Following the cancellation of the latter stages of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, officers have been reconsidering ways in which to meet the demand for secondary school places in Stevenage and to deal with the major building condition issues in those Stevenage schools which BSF will not address. It is also necessary to revoke the statutory proposal to expand Thomas Alleyne School and to move it to Great Ashby as this is no longer deliverable. A formal statutory notice is required for this purpose.

18. Substantial work has been undertaken by Barnwell School relating to its future direction. The BSF proposal for Barnwell had several dimensions:-

• Moving Barnwell to the Heathcote site, which would be rebuilt and also accommodate the secondary elements of Greenside Special School.

• Operating Barnwell at 8 forms of entry - Barnwell is a popular school and in the last 3 years, has admitted above its Published Admissions Number (PAN) in order to meet parental choice and the integration of significant numbers of students from Heathcote school;

• Moving Valley to the current Barnwell West site, but with Barnwell’s PE curriculum still taught on that site;

• Releasing the Barnwell East site.

19. This was an expensive package of proposals, and with the ending of BSF is not deliverable. However, Barnwell and Greenside schools have already developed a variant to the above proposal which retains many of the benefits and would be much lower cost. It is also responsive to the shifting pattern of demand for school paces in Stevenage, and the need for around 2 f.e. of additional provision in the south of the town.

20. Barnwell has considered its current organisational structure post BSF to see how best it can still deliver the benefits that BSF might have secured. They have explored a range of organisational structures including a ‘schools-within-schools’ option, retaining the breadth of curriculum choice that large schools can offer with the benefits of a ‘small school’ ethos where the individual is part of a strong and close knit school community. This would entail two 11-16 “schools”, each with 5 forms of entry, at the former Heathcote and Barnwell West sites, and sixth form provision at Barnwell East (the former Colleenswood site). Barnwell School has requested an increase in its Published Admission Limit for 2012 to 300, a matter which was dealt with in the report on admissions arrangements for 2012 to the last meeting of Cabinet.

21. Collaboration is being explored with North Herts College round the development of a new 14-19 “studio school” under the aegis of North Herts and based at Barnwell East. This is still under discussion as the college is exploring alternatives.

22. An important element of the approach would be the retention of the previous plan for a Greenside secondary-aged provision on the former Heathcote site. This would help to address acute problems regarding space and building condition at Greenside, which have been raised by the governing body.

23. Barnwell is at the end of its internal consultation and wishes to consult more widely with current and prospective parents and the wider community. The school has written to request that, before that wider consultation begins, the County Council confirms that it will transfer to Barnwell (and, so far as is appropriate, to Greenside) the current Heathcote site once that school closes.

24. Officers believe that the Barnwell proposals are worthy of support, and that the County Council should confirm its intention in principle to transfer the Heathcote site to the school. The extent to which capital funding is required to give effect to the vision described above would be a matter for consideration in the autumn, in the context of a longer term strategic approach to both school expansions and maintenance. It should be noted that the building condition of Heathcote is relatively good.

25. The way in which the current Barnwell East (Colleenswood) site is developed, and its future in general, will depend in part on the outcome of current discussions regarding the “studio school”. However, it will be important to test the extent to which the retention of this site is a necessary and cost effective element of the wider Barnwell/Greenside plans.

26. In the interim, it is expected that Barnwell will continue to work closely with Heathcote to help manage as well as possible the closure process.

27. Officers are in discussion with Barclay and Thomas Alleyne schools about their future development. The building condition of both schools is poor in comparison with the rest of the County. There are various reasons for this, but one is the “blight” placed on these schools (and on Barnwell) by the BSF programme for a long period of years in which no major maintenance works were undertaken. It is likely that this will be an issue for consideration in the autumn, in the context of future maintenance priorities and the eventual 3 year capital settlement. However, neither this nor the future need for provision at Great Ashby directly affects the Barnwell proposal.

5. Equalities

5.1 Additional school places in areas where a demand for them can be demonstrated will improve access to school places to all sectors of the communities in which they are located.

6. Financial Implications

6.1 The capital budget available for school expansions is set out in the Integrated Planning Process (IPP), and totals £111.95m over the period 2010/11 to 2013/14. Cabinet, at its last meeting, agreed a series of primary-sector expansion projects to a value of £71.26m (net). The capital budget for (non Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funded) “maintenance” set out in the IPP for the same period is £50.74m. Both these figures depend on the level of capital grant allocations from DfE for future years, which are uncertain. “Maintenance” is, in effect, everything else which is not expansions.

6.2 The table below sets out IPP provisions over the 4 year planning period, commitments against these, and the profile of the proposed additional spending set out in the report above:-

|£m |2010/11 |2011/12 |2012/13 |2013/14 |Total |

|IPP profile school expansions |1.50 |49.20 |34.30 |26.95 |111.95 |

| | | | | | |

|Primary projects agreed by Cabinet|1.30 |46.33 |22.62 |1.01 |71.26 |

|in March | | | | | |

|Residual for uncommitted expansion|0.20 |2.87 |11.68 |25.94 |40.69 |

|projects | | | | | |

|-- Proposed for Leventhorpe | |0.20 | | | |

| | | | | | |

|IPP profile “maintenance” | |11.87 |16.17 |22.70 |50.74 |

|-- Proposed for Astley Cooper | |t/b/a | | | |

6.3 Officers are currently working on proposals for the use of the balance of the maintenance funding for 2011/12 and, as referred to above, a strategy report is planned for the autumn to set out an approach towards schools maintenance over the next 4 years in the light of the outcome of the James Review and the eventual financial settlement for 2012/13 to 2014/15.

6.4 For 2011/12, it is anticipated that the bulk of the grant funding for maintenance will be used on smaller-scale maintenance projects, developed in consultation with schools.

7. Conclusions

1. The demand for secondary school places is rising in some areas and will need addressing in the short/medium term. Cabinet is asked to consider the recommendations are set out in section 3 above.

Background Information

• Reports and Minutes, Education & Skills Cabinet Panel, December 2009

• Reports and Minutes, Cabinet, December 2009

• Reports and Minutes, Cabinet, March 2011

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