The Chair introduced Robert Veale, the Assistant Director for Education at Kent County Council (KCC) who had been invited to give an update about education provision on the Isle of Sheppey. The Chair said that she and Councillor Dolley Wooster had been leading on bringing this item to the Sheppey Councillors & Residents Forum.

Mr Veale introduced himself and explained that there were 4 Assistant Directors for Education in Kent and he covered the Borough of Swale and part of his role focused around people based planning. He said that he was not able to answer specific questions about individual children during the meeting, but would stay to the end of the meeting and would be able to take details of queries back to the appropriate officers at KCC.

He said that after the Oasis Academy had been placed into special measures, the decision was taken that the Isle of Sheppey needed two smaller schools. As KCC were not able to open new schools, two academies came forward and established the Leigh Academy, Minster, and East Kent College Secondary. As a result there were now two successful secondary schools on the Isle of Sheppey.

At that time, the planned admission numbers was 390 pupils, however, both Chief Executives of the individual academy trusts felt that to deliver higher quality education on the Isle of Sheppey, they would reduce that figure to 330. Since then KCC had been in negotiation with both academies to permanently expand the Leigh Academy by 60 pupils and East Kent College Secondary by 30 pupils. This process would take a long time and would not be achieved until September 2028. Pupil place pressure in September 2027 would mean that 5 extra forms would be needed. KCC were following up with individual schools to see how the extra places could be found. KCC could ask schools to expand but schools do not have to agree. If necessary the Department for Education (DfE) would be asked to intercede.

The following comments were raised:

·       As KCC dealt with births deaths marriages, why were places not anticipated?;

·       funding had been ring-fenced for a new primary school following the Queenborough and Rushenden redevelopment. As the new school was not needed, could that funding be reallocated to the secondary schools?;

·       there was a huge amount of SEND (special education needs and disabilities) families on the island and at some point they have all felt lonely and isolated. Why were growing numbers of children falling out of the process when EHCPs (education, health and care plan) allow places of education to say they cannot meet the needs of these children all leading to children being not supported for their education for sometimes years at a time? This would not be acceptable for a mainstream child so why are KCC creating a two tier system where the most vulnerable are hardest hit?;

·       could mobile classrooms be used to accommodate the extra forms?;

·       some children had not attended school since the end of last year despite going through the appeals process. KCC had given them a place at the Abbey School, Faversham but the parents could not transport them there;

·       parents were told to put all of the options down on the admissions form and they were still allocated the Abbey School, Faversham;

·       why were proposed solutions to transport children to schools off the Isle of Sheppey not implemented by KCC?;

·       what was the plan for children on the Isle of Sheppey for when the Sittingbourne School was full?; and

·       with so many houses planned to be built on the Isle of Sheppey, what was KCC’s plan to accommodate the increased number of children?

Mr Veale responded that in the long-term KCC would be facing falling birth-rates and were aware of the places required, but they only had certain levers to find additional places. Councillors and Members of Parliament could write to the DfE to lobby them to provide extra funding. The Government knows that nationally education system, especially around SEND, was broken. The Government were pushing a White Paper through with reforms and KCC had £20 million earmarked for specialist resource provisions. The education budget in Kent was under pressure due to buying places from the independent sector which took funding away from mainstream schools. KCC only had the money provided by Government. KCC did not have the powers to tell an academy they were going to put mobile classrooms on their grounds. There was a huge revenue costs to provide mobile classrooms. The system for ranking and placements was very complex. Some parents had not put any choice of school on their admission forms, more recently information sessions had been held on how to fill out the form correctly. The KCC Cabinet Member for Education was determined that there would not be a repeat what happened in 2025. All schools were going to have to work together to come up with the extra 5 forms of entry and the problems about placements in distant schools would need to be taken into account. A new secondary school in north west Sittingbourne was in the pipeline. There was Government formula used called the pupil product ratio which was used by KCC and developers to give an indicative number of pupils when new housing was planned, it included inward migration.

Mr Veale was arranging for Councillor Wooster to meet with education officers at KCC to discuss the issues parents were experiencing.

The Chair thanked Mr Veale for taking the time to come and talk to the Sheppey Councillors & Residents Forum.