The BS5 Secondary Education Forum have expressed concerns about the delay in providing a new secondary school at Silverthorne Lane, St Philips. The school is also of interest to Totterdown parents and so we have reproduced (below) an article from their Facebook page @BS5secondaryeducationforum
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Secondary places shortfall – BCC approve funding for new 6th form to free up space in existing schools
Earlier this week Bristol City Council (BCC) Cabinet members voted to approve £4.5m of ‘Basic Need Capital’ grant funding in order to create a dedicated 6th form building for the Cabot Learning Federation (CLF). This new 6th form building means that other CLF schools, such as BBA and John Cabot will have more room to absorb some of the extra Year 7 pupils due in September 2021. BCC believes this project will free up 138 additional year 7 places in east Bristol schools. BCC estimates that there will be an overall additional 170 places required in the area for September 2021 and they anticipate that schools outside of east Bristol will be able to cater for the extra 22 pupils (170 – 138).
This £4.5m had previously been allocated to Special Educational Needs projects but has been moved to cover for this project. BCC have stated that they ‘hope’ this funding can be reclaimed as part of future Basic Need Grant funding.
BS5 Secondary Education Forum’s view on the above…
Whilst the above plan may be the only possible solution to this immediate problem, it still results in very large intakes for local secondary schools. (Bristol Brunel Academy will be taking nearly 300 Year 7s in September). We remain concerned about how the quality of education for the children at these schools will be affected.
It is also important to remember that this situation should not have happened at all. Bristol City Council has known for eight years that this problem was coming and has failed to open a new secondary school that would have ensured sustainable intake numbers, wider choice and more certainty of quality.
Whilst there have been delays to the planning procedure and project management failures by the Department for Education, Bristol City Council should take some responsibility. BCC are ultimately responsible for providing school places and back in 2015 they chose not to take on the building of a new school themselves, citing a lack of available Capital Funding. Instead they passed the responsibility to central Government and failed to scrutinise the progress of the project until it was too late to save.
Remarkably, in just three months, BCC has been able to find £4.5m to fix a problem of their own creation, yet with an eight year lead-in they were unable to manage their finances in order to allocate adequate funding to build a new school under their control.
We also have concerns about the idea that monies dedicated to SEND projects can so easily be re-allocated in the ‘hope’ that this funding can be recovered. What guarantees are in place that children with Special Educational Needs will not be affected by this immediate funding shortfall?
This emergency £4.5m funding package signed off by Cabinet is not a measure of success, but the ultimate price for a failure to put children’s needs at the heart of decision making.
On 14th December Bristol City Council councillors and officers will be in front of the Council’s People Scrutiny Panel to explain how certain decisions were made (and not made) and ultimately how we got to this point. We would encourage anyone that is concerned about the secondary provision in east Bristol to submit a statement to the Panel and attend the meeting.
Details of the meeting are here: https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=139&MId=8616