Decision details

Cabinet previously gave approval to publish a statutory notice proposing the amalgamation of Southdown Infant and Junior schools into a primary school.  The Cabinet members will now be asked determine the statutory notice proposing amalgamation

(1) To APPROVE the publication of a statutory notice proposing the closure of Southdown Junior school and the expansion and change in upper age range of Southdown Infant school in order to create an all through 420 place primary school.

The two schools were federated on 1 January 2014. Federation is a formal arrangement whereby schools share a single governing body but retain their own legal status, character, budget, performance tables and OFSTED inspections. As a result, they are already led and managed by a single Headteacher and Governing Body, in the same way as the primary school would be. The Headteacher and Governing Body have expressed a wish for the two schools to be fully amalgamated into an all through primary school. There would be several benefits in becoming a primary school:

• It will provide children with a seamless journey through school from age 4 – 11, removing the need for Infant school children to apply for a Year 3 junior school place as now.

• It will support and enhance the delivery of the new 2014 curriculum and would enable better continuity and progression of children’s learning, particularly between Key Stage One and Key Stage Two.

• It will promote high educational standards and ensure high quality, good teaching.

• It will allow consistency of approach to learning policies, behaviour management, Special Education Needs (SEN) provision and better use of educational resources including teaching and non-teaching staff.

• It will provide opportunities to increase the range of expertise and experience of teaching staff and provide opportunities for improvements in the deployment and development of teachers.

The 11 consultation responses that were received from parents, parent governors, staff, unions and other interested parties were all in support of the proposal.

To continue to run the Infant and Junior schools as separate schools as at present

This option was rejected as this would not achieve any of the benefits as outlined in Section 6 above. Also the schools are already federated and the Governing Body and Headteacher wish to be fully amalgamated into an all through primary school.