Issue details

Proposed decision:

i.             agree to provide £5m from the Children, Young People and Education Capital Budget for the permanent expansion of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School by 1FE from 150 to 180 PAN from September 2023.

ii.            Authorise the Director of Infrastructure, Strategic and Corporate Services in consultation with the General Counsel and Director of Education to enter into any necessary contracts / agreements on behalf of the County Council.

iii.          Authorise the Director of Infrastructure, Strategic and Corporate Services to be the nominated Authority Representative within the relevant agreements and to enter into variations as envisaged under the contracts.

Reason for the decision:

The Kent Commissioning Plan has identified the need for additional selective places across the plan period due to population growth and new housing developments in the Faversham and surrounding area. The Kent Commissioning Plan (2021-2025) shows a deficit of -30 places for September 2022 and -34 places for September 2023 for the Canterbury and Faversham Selective Planning Group.

Background:

Queen Elizabeth Grammar school is part of the Canterbury and Faversham Selective planning group. There are 4 Grammar schools within this planning group, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Simon Langton Girls Grammar school, Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys and Barton Court Grammar School. For September 2023 it is therefore proposed to permanently expand Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School by 30 places (1FE) to meet the need for additional places in Faversham and the planning area.

To help meet the need for additional grammar places in Swale both Highsted and Borden Grammar Schools are proposing to expand permanently by 1FE from September 2022 and form the Sittingbourne and Sheppey Selective planning area.

Options:

Simon Langton Girls Grammar school has recently been rebuilt through the DfE Priority School Build Programme. Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys has a current build programme to facilitate their expansion to 5 forms of entry and Barton Court Grammar school was expanded to 5 forms of entry in 2017 and is at capacity on their site.

How the proposed decision meets the objectives of ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’:

This proposal will help to secure our ambition “to ensure that Kent’s young people have access to the education, work and skills opportunities necessary to support Kent business to grow and be increasingly competitive in the national and international economy” as set out in ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement.