Updates on Sevenoaks Grammar and the free school

[mystery]

Thank you. Anyone out there apart from Daddylonglegs? We need someone to join our twosome here please. Not sure how to find a programme from BBC radio southeast at 1:30 today this evening.

[mystery]

There is something more about this .....


Thread edited by moderator (rule 6)

[daddylonglegs]

.........and what might that something be?

[mystery]

There is speculation on various websites and in the national press that it will be deemed illegal as the annex will not have the same admissions policy as invicta in Maidstone and therefore is not an expansion, but a new school.

Ukip wants new grammars to be made legal. Quite where this takes us I do not know.

[ToadMum]

Perhaps one could proceed on the same basis as faith-based Free Schools, i.e. if applications do not reach PAN they have to take everyone, but once they are oversubscribed, they are allowed to take up to 50% according to their desired selection (in this case, entrance test rank order rather than making sure that your face is known at the right sort of church?).

[mystery]

Good plan!

What percentage of the population at large wnt to bring back grammars? Is it large enough for ukip to win seats on the basis of this issue alone? Surely, as most children don't pass, it is not much of a vote catcher? Also, of course unless schools get smaller it increases the distance children will have to travel to school nationwide.

What makes an annex an annex? For the admissions policy to be the same, doesn't it have to base its admission distance calculations on the main site address?

[mystery]

See other thread for news of the expected no.

I wonder why the campaign website didn't report that invicta and Weald had to reply to further questions in September; i was under the impression that nothing had been heard for months and months from dfe or EFA.

Kcc avoided having the land at Knole seized under the academies legislation.

[pp1]

I am just wondering if anyone knows if - now that there will not be a Grammar at the Wildernesse site - will it have any repercussions for Trinity. I assume they will be able to build their new school on the site - or will they indeed make it a bigger school and use the space that was going to be taken up by the Grammar?

[mystery]

My own personal guess is that they will still only lease out the half of the site to the Christian school and the other half will remain empty for ever and a day.

The answer from the DfE was pretty much a categoric no to Invicta ever having an annex there as Sevenoaks children do not go to the current Invicta school. But it was not a categoric all-time no to Weald of Kent - although in practical terms it is almost as good as, and one has to wonder why any existing grammar would wish to have the burden of such a distant annex rather than expand closer to home --- although of course a free new building from KCC and a peppercorn rent on the land is a good deal in terms of the initial capital costs.

I therefore think the Sevenoaks grammar dream will live on for a while.

[Essex2Kent]

I am just wondering if anyone knows if - now that there will not be a Grammar at the Wildernesse site - will it have any repercussions for Trinity. I assume they will be able to build their new school on the site - or will they indeed make it a bigger school and use the space that was going to be taken up by the Grammar?

Hope not. Trinity have bullied their way into the site and can bully off