Competition for new Primary and Secondary Schools
BACKGROUND
New process for opening new schools
Until recently, the county council built and opened whatever schools it considered were needed in
an area. New legislation means that they have to ‘commission’ schools. They specify what is
required, invite bidders in a competition to set up and run the school and then decide which one to
accept. If they don’t get any bids, they can put in one of their own. If they are too closely involved
with one bidder or the decision process might be seen as being biased, the decision goes to an
independent adjudicator appointed by the government.
The new Trumpington primary school – September 2010
A primary school site of 2.3 hectares has been reserved beside the north east part of the park and
ride site and central to the residential area. It will start as a 1 form entry (30 per year similar to
Fawcett at the moment) with capacity to grow if needed. It will also be the main community building
in the development, with an extended school hall, changing rooms, two community rooms, an
office, a floodlit multi-use games area and enhanced school junior pitches. These will be in place
before any of the community facilities on the Clay Farm site.
Secondary School
Planned to open September 2012 and be the main venue for indoor and outdoor community sport.
The site, beside the green wedge, can house a 750 place school with playing fields in the green
belt.
Fawcett School will increase to become a 2 form entry school and have already added another
reception class to cater for an increasing number of children in the southern part of the city.
Fawcett already has a nursery class, all day care, out of school clubs, and a holiday club. From
2010 all schools must provide for children 8am – 6pm, five days a week, 48 weeks a year, and be
open to the community throughout the day for a wide range of activities.
Trumpington Children’s Centre will be build on the Fawcett site to serve the whole development.
Its job is to serve children 0-5 and their families
Southern Clay Farm School
A site has been reserved for another primary school south of the guided bus stop if the space is
needed. At the moment, only the expansion of Fawcett and the Trumpington Meadows schools are
definite.
THE COMPETITION
A Public meeting was held in February to ask the community what the school specifications should
contain. One of the main messages was that it should be community focussed, with the secondary
like a village college. The competition notice was drawn up and bids invited by 5 August. There will
then be a period of consultation including local meetings on :
Primary School
Secondary School
9th September at CPDC informal session followed by public meeting
15th September – the same
The primary school decision will be taken by the local authority cabinet in November, the
secondary will go to the School Adjudicator because the local authority has a place on the City of
Cambridge Trust (Parkside) who are one of the bidders.
The proposals will be on the internet before the meetings and I will make sure TRA has the links.
16/02/2016
THE BIDDERS
Secondary School
We know that Parkside, Netherhall and Sawston Village College are going to submit proposals. At
the moment, Netherhall is the catchment school for our area but nearly all local children go to
Sawston which was once our catchment school. There may be other bidders. The Northstowe
school competition has also attracted a church academy and a Swedish company.
Primary School This is the bid I know most about as I am a governor of Fawcett.
So far we only know of one bid but there may be others or the local authority could decide at the
last minute to submit one of their own. We will know in mid August.
Fawcett governors are proposing that the new primary school should join Fawcett School in a
federation (rather like Parkside and Coleridge). There would be one overarching governing body
and head teacher but leaders of each school. Each school would operate separately but they
would share specialist teachers, special needs experts, out of school activities, a business
manager etc. They would grow flexibly as the houses are built on both sites. Fawcett will have the
children’s centre but it must cover the whole area so that would be another place for joint working if
between them, the two schools cover all the area. Each school would have a parents and
community group of its own to make sure that they served their local area and that their new
community was integrated into the old. However, the community activities could be
complementary.
One reason for a primary school to make a bid (the first in the country we are told) is that we didn’t
like the idea of a separate school, not set up by the local authority, competing rather than cooperating. Federation will ensure the co-operation and give the capacity to adapt to the housing
growth economically. Our inspection report was very good indeed and we have the support of all
the neighbouring primary schools, Homerton Children’s Centre and Granta Special as well as Big
Wide Talk, a charity set up to work with parents and children. We think our bid will be strong but
that will be for others to decide.
Cllr Anne Kent
24th July 2008
16/02/2016