Updates on Sevenoaks Grammar and the free school

[mystery]

Why do you feel so strongly about that? It is public land; also academies and free schools are not in local authority control. KCC has no powers to build a new school of any type anywhere anymore. A lot has changed in the powers of local authorities over the decades.

So, as a taxpayer, I feel that any school that wanted, with good reason to lease a bit of it from KCC should stand as much chance as any other. The free school application went in much sooner than the grammar proposals. I am not sure why there was so much delay on the grammar proposal. I suppose it was finding a school that did want to put in a proposal for an annex in Sevenoaks that was the delaying factor.

Maybe you know some real facts from behind the scenes that members of the public don't know, but on the face of it from a bystander it looks perfectly reasonable that a state funded school should be leased a section of land on a publicly owned piece of land in Sevenoaks.

[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.

This is what the campaign website now says about the land at Knole:

“Secondly, we are exploring with Paul Carter and Roger Gough of KCC the modification of the current annexe plans to enable them to comply with Mr Gove’s interpretation of the law. As part of these discussions, we are greatly encouraged to hear that 90% of the Wildernesse site will continue to be retained by KCC for a future grammar school, with the remaining 10% leased to the Trinity School as planned...."

[daddylonglegs]

Not sure where this 90% / 10% split has come from? I thought that the Trinity School and the Grammar 'annex' were planned to be about the same size, so I would have thought that the site should be split 50/50.

[pheasantchick]

I was wondering that. Those figures have never been quoted before.

[mystery]

I am guessing but this is what I am thinking ..... the new buildings ( free school and hypothetical grammar annex) have to take place on the area that was covered by the old Wildnernesse school - the rest is green belt. This is what was explained to me at the hotel meeting.

The free school is a 4 form build and the hypothetical grammar a 6 form build. The free school occupies a bit less than half of the brownfield part of the site ( from memory all this - the grammar had a bit more of the brownfield site and a pleasanter aspect).

The 90% calculation must be assuming that the grammar annexe will have access to the huge green empty area (playing fields etc) and that the Free School only has access to a small amount of this? That is the only way it would make sense. But there is lots else about that news article that does not quite hang together .... as with most news articles .... e.g. it still seems to talk about Invicta as a way forward whereas the letters from the DfE make it clear that there's really very little hope of Invicta Maidstone expanding in Sevenoaks whereas maybe Weald could as it does have Sevenoaks children going to it.

The only real way forward would seem to be if the law is changed so that new selective schools can be created. There would still have to be the argument about need etc though which is not crystal clear at the moment from the KCC commissioning plan.

If it became a double annex (one bit Weald and one bit TWGSB) and they shuffled staff around as necessary to make it "one school" and had one admissions policy for Weald and one for TWGSB I still see a potential difficulty. Presumably a child would have to apply to Weald (or TWGSB) and take a chance on which site they would have to attend and when. I don't see many parents being keen on this .... particularly if they wanted it in Sevenoaks in the first place to avoid the journey to Tonbridge or Tunbridge Wells.##

I really do not understand any of it. There's going to be an empty school plot on the Knole East site for a long time to come I think.

[mystery]

The planning application has gone in for the free school and grammar school. So unless something not quite short of a miracle happens there will be an empty plot for a non-existent school alongside the free school for evermore.

It seems rather like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Without the grammar the design could have been re-jiggled to make the best use of the space for the free school. Some people seem to have forgotten that sevenoaks children go to the free school and that they do not have to travel very far .... Who knows, the highest achievers there could even do better than those at the grammars.

[pp1]

or perhaps Mystery there is something going on deep within KCC that we know nothing about!!!

[mystery]

You mean to make a grammar possible? That isn't within kcc powers though unless they have magical powers!

[pp1]

I thought (albeit with quite a few hurdles to leap!) the grammar hasn't been completely turned down if Weald of Kent were to become co-ed etc etc...but what do I know

[mystery]

Yes, Weald of Kent could turn co-ed and have the same admission policy for both sites in every respects ---- it's not that straightforward is it? You might live in Sevenoaks and still end up going to the Tonbridge campus!