Response and Recovery Committee

26 November 2020

Allocation of sites for school developments

Report by: Director of Children’s Services and Executive Director of Place ​

Relevant Portfolio Holder: Councillor Diane White, Portfolio Holder for Children's ​ Services including Education, and Councillor Caroline Kerr, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Assets and Investments

Purpose This report seeks approval for further work to be undertaken, and revenue funding to be provided, to further the aim of formally allocating land at Kingsmeadow in Norbiton and Moor Lane in for the development of a new voluntary-aided secondary school and a new special free school in the borough respectively, and seeks approval for additional funding for the new build required to implement the expansion of Burlington Junior School from four to five forms of entry.

To RESOLVE that: ​ ​ 1. further due diligence is undertaken, and revenue funding provided for that purpose, towards a formal allocation of land at Kingsmeadow as the site for a new voluntary-aided 900-place (180 per year) 11-16 Church of England secondary school to be provided by the Diocese of Southwark.

2. further due diligence is undertaken, and revenue funding provided for that purpose, towards a formal allocation of land at the Moor Lane Centre site for a new 4-19 90-place special free school to be provided by Ambitious About Autism.

3. funding is allocated for the new build required to implement the expansion of Burlington ​ Junior School from four to five forms of entry and to maintain the school’s existing ‘CLASP’ building until the new accommodation can, subject to planning permission, be built.

Benefits to the community: The proposals will provide a new secondary school and special school for children from the local area and thereby provide additional school places to meet forecast demand. The new schools and the expansion of Burlington Junior School will avoid the need for local children to be accommodated at schools outside their local area, potentially being a considerable distance away at other schools across the borough. The expansion of Burlington Junior will also provide a much improved, 21st Century learning environment to replace the school’s ‘CLASP’ building which is beyond its original ‘shelf life’.

Key Points

A. The Council has a legal duty, under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, to provide a ​ ​ sufficiency and diversity of state-funded school places for those of its residents who need them, in accordance with forecast demand. The School Place Planning Strategy,

adopted by the Council’s then Growth Committee in June 2017, identified a likely need for additional mainstream secondary school places beyond 2020.

B. Since then, demand for Year 7 places in the Borough has grown considerably: In September 2018, there was a 5% vacancy rate in Year 7 places across the borough, 96 places in three schools: Chessington, Coombe Boys’ and Tolworth Girls’; in September 2019, there was a 2.3% vacancy rate – 47 spare places, all of which were at Chessington School; and in September 2020, there was a 1% vacancy rate - just 22 places, all at Chessington School. The need for additional places in the Kingston and Norbiton areas of the borough in particular has grown. Demand is set to increase further over the next six years and beyond. A revised School Place Planning Strategy, setting out that demand, was considered and approved at the Council’s Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee (CACE) on 10 November.

C. The Diocese of Southwark, which maintains nine primary schools in the Borough, has had a longstanding wish to open a voluntary-aided co-educational Church of England secondary school within the borough, to provide a natural Year 7 destination for some of the children attending those primary schools.

D. In December 2018, the Department for Education (DfE) announced an application round in which it would provide 90% of the capital costs of new voluntary-aided schools in areas where a need for new secondary places had been identified. As the Council would not, as set out below, be able to ensure the opening of an additional secondary school by other means or be able to expand existing secondary schools to provide the requisite number of additional places, it therefore supported the Diocese’s application.

E. That support involved meeting two conditions of the DfE’s application success criteria: that a Council-owned site would be provided on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis (in the same way as for a new free school); and that it would provide the remaining 10% of capital funding needed for the school, estimated at £2.5m. The Diocese’s application for a six-form entry 11-16 school to the DfE identified a site within the Kingston/Norbiton area, and the Council subsequently agreed, subject to formal committee approval, that the Kingsmeadow site in Norbiton should be long-leased for the school.

F. In order to establish the school, the Diocese must undertake a formal consultation on a ​ ​ statutory proposal setting out the details of the school. It is envisaged that the Diocese will undertake a six-week consultation with all relevant stakeholders during January and February 2021. That proposal must set out the details of the proposal, including: age-range; the proposed admissions oversubscription policy; and the intended opening date, which is envisaged to be September 2024.

G. The Council’s Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee (CACE), acting as local decision-maker, will then, within three months of the end of the Diocese’s consultation period, be required to consider the proposal and the responses to it and to make a formal determination either to approve or refuse the proposal. Approval of a statutory proposal can be contingent upon conditions being met; in this instance, the Council’s Response and Recovery Committee subsequently considering and deciding to dispose of the Kingsmeadow site, and its Development Control Committee considering and deciding to approve the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s planning application for the school’s build and landscaping works.

H. The School Place Planning Strategy of 2017 also set out a need for additional special school and specialist resource provision places in the Borough, to provide education for children and young people with special educational needs. In 2018, the DfE announced a second wave of its special free school competition programme, i.e. to invite local authorities to make applications for the right to hold a competition to secure an education provider who would run a special school within its area. The DfE would pay all the capital costs associated with the provision of the school. Achieving for Children (AfC), on behalf of the Council, submitted an application for a 90-place special school to serve children and young people aged four to 19 whose primary special educational need is autism.

I. Although there are several specialist resource provisions in mainstream primary and secondary schools in the Borough which educate children and young people with autism, there is no special school which has a dedicated designation of autism. The application was therefore made, in October 2018, on the basis that it would meet a clear gap in local provision. The DfE’s application success criteria included a requirement that a Council-owned site would be provided for the school on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis.

J. In the application, part of the Moor Lane Centre site in Chessington was identified as the potential site. In March 2019, the DfE approved the application. In May 2020, AfC issued a specification inviting education providers to apply to run the proposed school. Following the application and interview process, the DfE appointed Ambitious About Autism as the provider. Work, led by the Department’s funding arm, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), is ongoing regarding initial feasibility and design work for the school.

K. A report, or reports, will subsequently be brought to the Council’s Response and Recovery Committee in spring 2021, requesting formal allocation of the two sites on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis and of the 10% contribution towards the costs of the Church of England school. In order to make progress towards that point, this report requests that revenue funding be provided to support the further due diligence, including legal work, which is required.

L. In November 2019, a statutory proposal to expand Burlington Junior from four to five forms of entry was approved, in order to provide additional places when they are forecast to be needed.The Council therefore has a statutory duty to implement that proposal. Although an indicative figure of £6m was stated as the forecast project cost when the proposal was approved, detailed cost analysis has subsequently shown that the likely cost will be substantially more than that. This report therefore requests funding from within the Council’s capital programme to cover the estimated cost of £13.1m (£10m for construction and £3.1m for fees, inflation and contingency). As the Juniors’ main ‘CLASP’ block is aging and past its ‘shelf life’, it will need further remedial work to ensure that it is both safe and suitable as a learning environment until the new accommodation can be built. An amount of £50,000 is therefore requested to fund the feasibility and initial remedial work required to make this building safe to occupy until the next section is completed. Should the works exceed £50,000, those costs would have to be found within the existing overall budget of £13.1m or a further report brought to Committee.

SECONDARY SCHOOL PROVISION

The forecast need for additional secondary school places

1. On National Offer Day for Year 7 admissions in 2019, there were 112 children in Kingston unplaced. This was despite an additional 75 secondary school places being provided in through temporary expansions at Coombe Boys’ School, and . The number of unplaced children was due to a significant increase in in-borough applications compared with previous years. Although all these children were placed from the waiting-lists following the initial offers, it was clear that there were significant pockets of difficulty, in KT1, KT2 and, to a lesser extent, KT3. Numbers also increased significantly in neighbouring Richmond upon Thames, which impacted on the availability of places in schools to which Kingston families had traditionally sought places, chiefy Christ’s School, Grey Court School and Teddington School. With the numbers of applicants forecast to rise further in future years, meeting the need for secondary school places locally will become impossible without additional permanent places. This is demonstrated in the table below:

* Numbers derived from pupil censuses; ** Conversion rates derive from % of Year 6 leavers compared with Year 7 starters; Numbers in bold in PAN columns are permanent or temporary expansions

2. These forecasts are based on the numbers of children attending Kingston primary schools who will be transferring to Year 7 in the next seven years and don’t yet take account of the likely additional ‘pupil yield’ - i.e.the numbers of children who will need new school places within the borough - from housing developments, including the proposed regeneration of the Cambridge Road Estate. (Work is ongoing to develop an up-to-date and reliable pupil yield formula for the Borough).

3. There are very limited opportunities to provide the additional secondary school places through further expansion of the Borough’s 11 existing state-funded secondary schools, all of which are academies except Chessington School which is currently in the process of academisation. Eight of the schools are selective by gender, and four of those eight are additionally selective by either faith or ability, rather than principally on home-to-school distance.

4. Permanent expansion options are limited by the unusual make-up of the 11 schools and by the lack of space or accommodation in those schools within or close to the main area of need for additional places, in central Kingston and Norbiton: Coombe Boys’ School, Coombe Girls’ School, The Hollyfield School and . Expanding any of the other seven secondary schools within the borough is unlikely to help to provide places for children living in central Kingston and Norbiton who might otherwise be unplaced. In addition, the Council does not have sufficient Basic Need funding allocated by the ESFA to support the creation of the required additional schools places even if permanent school expansions were feasible.

Methods for delivering secondary school places 5. There are three ways in which a state-funded mainstream secondary school can be established: through a traditional free school route, a free school presumption route and a voluntary-aided school route. The traditional route has minimal input from the local authority; it involves the submission by an education provider or other group to the DfE in a free school application wave and the approval by a Government Minister. The DfE would pay all capital costs, including, where necessary, for the acquisition of a suitable site. However, the last two application waves which have been approved – Wave 13 and Wave 14 – have been solely for areas of low social mobility and low educational attainment respectively, thereby closing off any possibility that an application for a new secondary in the borough would be approved. It is considered highly unlikely that that situation would change within the short to medium term.

6. The free school presumption route is open to any local authority which: (a) identifies the need for a new school; (b) owns a suitable site; and (c) has sufficient capital funding available to pay for the design and build process. In that route, the local authority runs a competition inviting education providers to submit bids against a specification and then informs the Department for Education of its preferred bidder, which may, or may not, be agreed by the Secretary of State. Kingston Council does not have, and never has had, sufficient capital to use this route, as the cost would be approximately £25 million.

7. The voluntary-aided school route has until recently involved a proposal by a faith organisation, such as an Anglican or Catholic Diocesan Board of Education, to develop a new school in a specific local authority area, but for which that group and/or the local authority would have to pay the entire capital costs of design and build. Neither a local faith organisation nor Kingston Council would have sufficient capital to use this route, as the cost would be approximately £25 million. This route therefore appeared to be closed off in Kingston, until December 2018, when the Department for Education invited bids from faith education organisations for new voluntary-aided schools for which the DfE would meet 90% of the capital costs. The guidance made it clear that successful bids would be contingent on a local authority-owned site being made available on a long-lease, peppercorn-rent basis.

Application by the Diocese of Southwark

8. The Diocese of Southwark, who run nine primary-phase schools in the borough agreed with the Council that they would submit an application for a six-form entry (180 places per year) voluntary-aided Church of England secondary school. Since it seemed highly unlikely that a new secondary free school would be approved in the borough within the timescales needed for sufficient new places to be provided, the Council decided, subject to formal decision-making, to: support the Diocese’s application to the DfE for funding of 90% of the capital costs of establishing a Church of England secondary school; commit to paying the remaining 10% estimated at £2.5 million; and provide a site on a 125-year peppercorn-rent basis. The Council’s support and agreement were made conditional on the proposed school having two-thirds of its available Year 7 places as ‘Open’, i.e. available to any applicants, and a third as ‘Foundation’, i.e. to those who can demonstrate Anglican or other Christian practice/adherence. The Diocese submitted their application in February 2019, and the Department for Education approved it in March 2020, subject to: the ESFA’s feasibility of the proposed site and obtaining

planning permission; the Council’s formal disposal of the site; and the Council’s formal determination, as ‘local decision maker’, of the Diocese’s statutory proposal to establish the school.

SPECIAL SCHOOL PROVISION

The forecast need for additional special school places

9. The Council’s 2017 School Place Planning Strategy outlined that of the 976 children and young people in the borough who at that point had statements of special educational needs or Education, Health and Care plans, 310 had a primary presenting need of autism. As at September 2020, the number has risen to 512 out of 1,386 children and young people with Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs). The strategy recommended that the majority of SEND school place planning efforts should be put towards increasing the number of high-quality school places within the borough for children and young people with autism, and the other main presenting need, social, emotional and mental health needs (SEMH). Increasing the availability of local places for local children and young people not only enables them to be educated within their home community but also has a financial benefit for the Council as the placement and home-to-school transport would be much reduced in comparison to the costs of of children and young people attending out-borough educational settings, many of which are in the independent sector.

10. When, in 2018, the DfE announced Wave 2 of the special free school competition programme, Achieving for Children, on behalf of Kingston and Richmond councils, submitted, in October, two applications: for a 90-place school in Kingston designated for children and young people aged 4-19 with EHCPs whose main need is autism; and a 90-place school in Richmond for children and young people aged 7-19 with EHCPs whose main need is SEMH. The site identified for the Kingston school was part of the Moor Lane Centre site in Chessington. The DfE announced the approval of both applications in March 2019.

Methods for delivering special school places

11. New special schools can ordinarily only be established through the traditional free school route or the free school presumption route, as set out in paragraph 5 above. For the reasons set out there, the likelihood of a new special school being established within the Council’s area was negligible, until Wave 2 of the DfE’s special free school competition programme was announced.

12. The Council has already worked with Orchard Hill College and Academy Trust (OHCAT) who run the three existing special schools - Bedelsford, Dysart and St Philip’s - to expand capacity. The Council has used Basic Need funding to expand St Philip’s downwards in age to provide Key Stage 2 places, and has used some of its DfE Special Capital provision allocation to provide a satellite site of Dysart at the former School Lane Community Centre in Tolworth. Work is ongoing with OHCAT to enable the provision of another proposed satellite of Dysart and of an ambitious plan for the creation of a 16-25 campus which would relocate the sixth forms of the three schools, plus Orchard Hill College, and thereby free up space on the three schools’ sites for additional 4-16 places.

PROPOSED SITES

Kingsmeadow

16. The site is owned by the Council and is approximately 1 hectare.

17. The due diligence undertaken to date includes: ​

● Red book valuation for housing of the site is £6.5m (for a policy compliant scheme), and the proposed school’s 125-year lease would have a value of £4.3m. As the difference between the premium received (£0m) is greater than ​ £2m, the Council will need to obtain Secretary of State approval for the disposal.

● Legal Title Review - completed 30 August 20 - resulting legal findings shared with ESFA.

● Heads of Terms - negotiations with the ESFA are ongoing.

18. Discussions are ongoing with other parties adjacent to the site, full details of which will be provided within a future report to this committee requesting disposal of the site.

Moor Lane Centre site

19. The site is owned by Kingston Council and is approximately 2.6 hectares. Part of the site would be retained by the Council for its use, whilst approximately 2.0 hectares would be long-leased to the ESFA.

20. The proposed school development includes:

● Demolition of swimming pool and changing facilities - both vacant/condemned;

● Construction on the western part of the field;

● The school’s play space and sports pitches at the east of its proposed building; and

● Shared use of the existing car park.

21. The Respite Centre and Moor Lane Centre would remain in existing use.

22. The due diligence undertaken by officers to date is as follows:

● Valuation - the Red Book valuation of the area proposed to be leased is £8.5m for a residential site (assuming a policy compliant residential development scheme), with unrestricted value for a 125-year lease being £6.7m.

● Legal Title Review - some work was undertaken in July 2020, but further work is needed to ensure that the site is free from restriction and can therefore be transferred.

● Heads of Terms - negotiations with the ESFA are ongoing.

● Approvals - as the gap between the value and the premium payable for the site (£0m) is greater than £2m, RBK will require Secretary of State approval for the disposal as well as Committee approval of the transaction.

BURLINGTON JUNIOR SCHOOL

23. The statutory proposal to expand Burlington Junior from four to five forms of entry was published, consulted upon and approved in order to provide forecast additional places from September 2025.

24. The proposal and the report to CACE in November 2019 explained that there was a medium-term forecast need for additional state-funded primary school places in New Malden due to increased birth-rates and anticipated housing developments at Cocks Crescent and elsewhere in the area, but that the Council wished first to see King’s Oak Primary School, which has some spare capacity at present, fill to its published admission number. The approval of the housing development on the former Homebase site and the prospect of other local developments, including, crucially, the proposed regeneration of the Cambridge Road estate, mean that the Council cannot continue to rely on there being spare capacity at King’s Oak ad infinitum.

25. In spring 2017, staff at the Juniors’ noticed subsidence beneath the school’s main building and alerted the Council. The building was constructed in the late 1960s under the ‘Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme’, known by the acronym ‘CLASP’.

26. Structural surveys concluded that the condition of the materials used in the construction of the CLASP building were generally in good condition, but the fixings supporting the external wall panels on the frame were loose and in some cases were inadequate. Monitoring points were installed in a number of key areas to provide reference points in which abnormal movement of the wall panels could be observed.

27. Some remedial work was consequently undertaken, but that was intended as no more than a short- to medium-term fix. Its condition has been inspected on a quarterly basis since then. However, it remains in poor repair and remedial work is needed to assure a safe and comfortable learning environment is provided until the proposed new accommodation is built and ready for occupation, i.e. until September 2023. The latest structural report (November 2020) has recommended structural remedial works to the original panels. Further surveys are presently underway to ascertain the status of the roof, fire compliance and mechanical and electrical equipment to sustain a further three years of occupation.

28. When the statutory proposal to expand Burlington Junior was approved in ​ ​ ​ ​ November 2019, the report to CACE included an indicative cost of £6m - made up of £5m from its ‘Basic Need’ allocations received from the Education and Skills Funding Agency and £1m of borrowing - to pay for the works which would be needed to provide the requisite accommodation for replacement of the CLASP block and the expansion to five-form entry.

29. That indicative cost has since been substantially revised. As the designs for the project are only now at RIBA Stage 1, a detailed cost analysis, including benchmarking with other outer school expansion projects, could not have

been undertaken until now, and has shown that the construction costs would be approximately £10m, with professional fees (£1m), inflation (£0.5m) and risk budget (£1.6m) taking the forecast cost to £13.1m. Some changes to the scope, design changes and the impact of Covid have contributed to the discrepancy between the initial, premature estimate and the cost assessment recently undertaken. Work is ongoing with the school to reduce costs in a manner which will not compromise the school’s ability to continue to provide excellent educational standards when it expands to five-form entry.

Proposal and options

30. These are set out within the itemised sections of the report.

Consultations

31. For both proposed new schools, the providers are required by law to undertake consultation on their proposals.

32. The Diocese of Southwark must publish and consult upon a statutory proposal to establish a voluntary-aided secondary school, in accordance with Section 11 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and associated DfE guidance.

33. Ambitious About Autism must, in accordance with Section 10 of the Academies Act 2010, undertake consultation with local stakeholders as part of the process in which the Secretary of State decides whether or not to grant the school a supplemental funding agreement to enable it to open.

Timescales

34. These are set out within the body of the report.

Resource implications

35. As stated above, the Council would be required, by the terms of the agreement with the Department for Education, to provide 10% of the capital costs of the proposed voluntary-aided Church of England secondary school. These are currently estimated at £2.5m. The unallocated Basic Needs budget of £5.125m (over two years) could be used to fund this project but this could only be used once and would therefore not be available for the other projects in this report or other school capital projects.

36. As stated above, the Council would need to invest up to £13.1m to take forward the proposed design and build scheme for Burlington Junior School, of which £7.9m has already been committed from the basic need grant allocation. The shortfall of £5.1m could be met in part from the remaining unallocated Basic Needs funding (after allowing £2.5m for the secondary school as above), but the remaining £2.5m would need to be funded from borrowing. Additional borrowing would create an additional revenue cost in the region of £125,000 in interest and minimum revenue provision which would need to be included in the Council’s medium term financial plan.

37. Additionally, as also stated above, a sum estimated at £50,000 of capital would also be needed to undertake feasibility and initial work required to make this building

safe to occupy until the next section is completed, as it has become apparent that further remedial work is needed to ensure that the CLASP building continues to provide a safe and suitable learning environment until the new accommodation has been built and can be occupied. This would also need to be financed from borrowing.

38. When a school expands to meet a basic need for places, revenue funding, currently £54,664 per school year, is provided to pay for the costs of seven-twelfths of the annual salaries of a teacher and teaching assistant, plus some other additional resources, for the period between September, when the additional class is admitted, and April, when the per-pupil funding for those children kicks in retrospectively, based upon the October pupil census figures. That funding would be required for the four years of Burlington Junior School’s expansion and would be sourced from the ‘Growth Fund’ element of the Dedicated Schools Grant School Block, subject to annual agreement by Schools’ Forum.

39. Revenue funding will be required for the Kingsmeadow and Moor Lane Centre Sites. This is needed for the due diligence legal work to be undertaken towards the formal allocation. There is currently no provision within existing revenue budgets to meet this need, therefore additional revenue funding of £50,000 is required. If no headroom can be created within existing budgets through expenditure restraint or other means then these additional costs would need to be met from reserves.

Legal Implications

40. Under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, the Council has a duty to ensure the provision of sufficient schools for its area. ‘Sufficient’ means sufficient in number, character and equipment to provide for all pupils the opportunity of appropriate education. Under section 14A the Council must consider any parental representations regarding its functions under section 14.

41. If the Council considers that a new school is needed, under section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, the Council has a duty to seek proposals for the establishment of an academy and must specify a site for a school. The Council would only need to follow this procedure if there would not otherwise be sufficient schools for the area. However, under section 11 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, a proposal can be made by another body at any time for the establishment of a voluntary-aided school.

42. The Council has a general power to dispose of land under section 120 of the Local Government Act 1972 for any of its functions; or for the benefit, improvement of development of the Council's area provided that section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 is taken into consideration. Section 123 places a statutory duty on local authorities to achieve best value in the context of land disposals and states that the disposal must not be for a consideration “less than the best that can reasonably be obtained”.

43. In regard to Burlington Junior School, the Council undertook formal consultation between 20 September 2019 and 18 October 2019 on the statutory proposal to expand the school from four to five forms of entry, in September 2025 at the earliest. The Council’s Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee, acting as ‘local decision maker’ in accordance with Department for Education statutory guidance, then approved the statutory proposal at its meeting on 12

November 2019. That decision was subsequently upheld at the Council’s Scrutiny Panel on 8 January 2020. The Council therefore has a legal duty to complement that proposal.

Risk Assessment

44. If Burlington Juniors’ were not expanded, the Council would have to ensure the provision of ‘bulge’ classes in Key Stage 2 as well as Key Stage 1, but there would be no guarantee that schools in the area, some of which are voluntary-aided schools and therefore outside the Council’s control, would agree to accommodate bulges. Providing bulge classes would necessitate a significant capital expenditure by the Council plus Dedicated Schools Grant Growth Fund revenue expenditure of £50,000 per year.

45. If expansion were not funded and implemented then the CLASP block would not necessarily be replaced, which could entail further deterioration of the building to the point where it became unusable and with no certainty of its ongoing safety.

Equalities Analysis

46. An equalities impact assessment was undertaken in spring 2017 on the Council’s revised School Place Planning Strategy, prior to the strategy’s approval by the Council’s Growth Committee in June 2017. The Strategy is principally designed to provide a sufficiency of school places within the borough; therefore, it identifies opportunities for establishing new mainstream schools and new SEND schools and resource provisions, and/or expanding existing mainstream schools and SEND schools where necessary. The EQIA noted, inter alia, that in January 2017, the Diocese of Southwark had announced its intention to apply for a Church of England secondary free school in the borough, but, as noted above, the parameters of the free school waves were such that it became obvious that an application for another secondary free school in the borough stood no chance of approval.

47. The proposed voluntary-aided Church of England secondary school would be designated as a school of religious character and would meet the Diocese of Southwark’s long-held ambition to provide a natural feeder for some of the children from its local Church of England primary schools - nine of the 35 state-funded primary-phase schools in the borough, which equates to 26%, are maintained by the Diocese, and another one is maintained by the Church of England Diocese of Guildford. It can therefore be argued that the proposed school would meet an identified gap in the local diversity of provision.

48. It should be noted that, as requested by the Council, the Diocese’s proposed admission arrangements for Year 7 entry would offer up to 60 ‘Foundation’ places for children from families who are Anglicans or other Christians, they would also offer up to 120 places to children of any other faith or none. In both categories, priority would be to current and previously looked-after children, then (from the second intake onwards) to children with siblings at the school at the time of admission, and then on the basis of proximity to the school as measured by straight line. Those criteria mirror the arrangements of the three existing secular state-funded secondary schools within the borough. In most Diocese of Southwark secondary schools the proportion of Foundation places is usually 40% or more, though the 33.3% proportion for this proposed Kingston school would be the same as the Diocese’s nearest existing secondary, Christ’s School in Richmond.

49. Currently, only three - Chessington School, The Hollyfield School and The Kingston Academy - of the borough’s 11 state-funded secondary schools are co-educational, providing 510 of the borough’s permanent Year 7 capacity of 1,935 places, which equates to just 26%. The 180 places which the proposed school would provide would increase that proportion to 32%, which would be helpful in meeting the needs of local families who do not have the option of independent sector places and/or would prefer to have their children educated within their home community rather than having to travel further afield to access schools which have vacancies.

50. The school would also include a proposal to establish a specialist resource provision for up to 20 children and young people with Social Communication Needs including Autism (in addition to the school’s ‘mainstream’ capacity of 900 pupils). That proposal would augment the borough’s local offer for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

51. The proposed special free school at Moor Lane would directly enhance the local offer for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Since the publication and approval of the June 2017 revision of the Council’s School Place Planning Strategy was published and approved, much work has been undertaken to increase the availability of local SEND places, through expanding existing state-funded special schools and creating new and expanding existing specialist resource provisions at mainstream schools, but it has also long been clear that a local Autism-specific state-funded special school has been required to help to meet the most common presenting special educational need among the borough’s child population.

52. Places at Burlington Junior are allocated primarily on the basis of proximity to the school. The expanded provision of school places at the school would therefore make a significant contribution towards the Local Authority meeting the wishes of all residents who would like their children to be educated within Kingston Borough schools.

Health Implications

53. The proposals for the two new schools and to expand Burlington Juniors would enable more local children to attend schools within a reasonable, and, for the two mainstream schools, walkable, distance of their homes, rather than travel further afield for their education.

Road Network Implications

54. If the schools were not established and expanded as appropriate, it is highly likely that more children living in the borough would be driven to and from school, and over longer distances, because they would have much further to travel for their schooling.

55. Any parking and traffic considerations regarding the proposals for the two new schools would be addressed within the subsequent planning applications.

Sustainability Implications

56. Providing and/or enabling local school places enables children to access school places within a ‘walkable’ distance from their homes, rather than having to travel by car or bus to schools further afield.

57. New build designs would be required to adhere to the Council’s minimum sustainability standards regarding BREEAM and other considerations.

Background papers

None.

Authors of report

Matthew Paul, Associate Director, School Place Planning, and Jessica Haines, Assistant Director, Property.