Minutes:
Question
The Secondary School plan is for an expansion at Piggott School where there is no current or future planned house building in the North of the Borough, while there are currently 3,500 houses being built at Arborfield Garrison, Gorse Ride extension and over 500 ex MOD houses have been added to the private rental market at Arborfield Garrison; but Bohunt is not one of the schools listed. Of course, not forgetting the Council’s plans for 4,500 houses at Hall Farm.
The plan delegates authority to the Director of Children’s Services and the Director of Resources, acting in consultation with the Leader of the Council and the lead Member for Children’s Services, to approve the procurement of the construction works and services etc.
As the Leader of the Council and the Executive Member for Children’s Services both are Members for Remenham, where no houses are scheduled to be built in the foreseeable future, would Bohunt School not have been a more obvious school for expansion?
Answer
Thank you Gary for the question as a Member for Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe I will answer it as well as the Lead Member for Children’s Services.
The additional places at Piggott School directly address an issue in that school’s designated area. The rising numbers of older primary and junior school children living in the area around the school means that children living in the south of Twyford would be very unlikely to secure a place at the Piggott School without additional places. These children would therefore need to be transported to an alternative school, many at the Council’s expense.
The other agreed additional places are in Wokingham Town, at the Emmbrook and St Crispin’s Schools. Both of these schools sit on the edge of areas of major housing growth. Bohunt School was considered, but any growth in Year 7 places would be linked to the school’s sixth form proposals and would therefore depend on a funding decision for that project. The report notes that additional capacity may be agreed at other schools. Subject to a future decision on the sixth form proposals, Bohunt School may also be able to offer additional places for children aged 11 to 16, that would both help address immediate needs and provide additional long-term capacity for the new Arborfield Green and Finchwood Park communities.
Supplementary Question
Moving students to out of catchment areas is something that the School has done before so that is not a new thing.
When one looks at, as I saw, the madness of moving Farley Hill Primary School lock, stock and barrel to Arborfield Garrison so denying children living there actually outside the gates of the new school access meaning they had to travel by cars elsewhere to be educated.
So, my question really is can this Council, with the Leader of Council and Executive Member for Education who would appear to have a vested interest in the proposed decisions, who along with the same people who took the Farley Hill Primary School decision making this decision are they doing the right thing for Wokingham schools’ children?
Supplementary Answer
If I may say so I disagree with what you are saying. What we are doing is for the good of all of the children across Wokingham, all 22,000 of them, and you know as well as anybody else, with your maturity on the Council, that it takes time to shift these things. It takes time to shift the designated areas and actually the admission policies are decided by the academies themselves and endorsed by the Schools’ Adjudicator, which is outside of the local authority’s control or remit.