A PROPOSAL has been made to change the age range at Steiner Academy in Frome from 3 to 16 to 3 to 13 – ending the school’s GCSE offer.
The change could come into effect from September 2020, re-designating the school as a middle school (deemed primary), and reducing the capacity of the school down to 540 pupils from the current 648.
The change to the school, which was placed into ‘special measures’ by Ofsted following an inspection last year that rated the school as ‘Inadequate’, has been proposed by the Avanti Schools Trust’s board of trustees, the multi-academy trust who have taken over management of the school, and the Steiner Academy Frome Academy management committee.
A consultation is currently under way until the end of October.
The ‘significant change’ proposal says, “The Secretary of State for Education decided in June 2019 that the academy should, following a rigorous due diligence process, join Avanti Schools Trust (AST). As part of the due diligence process AST was asked by the Department for Education to review the academy’s two-form entry all-through operating model and consider whether it was both educationally and financially sustainable in the longer term.
“AST’s conclusion is that the two-form entry model in the secondary phase is not sustainable financially and the small numbers of students admitted into the secondary phase necessitates a much narrower set of curriculum options when compared to other secondary schools in our multi-academy trust and locally. To address this challenge, AST initially looked at the option of extending the forms of entry into the secondary phase from two to four. It soon became apparent that this was not a viable option given the lack of basic need for additional secondary places in the Frome area, together with the constraints of the current site.”
Avanti Schools Trust say that they will work closely with the Somerset Local Authority admissions team to ensure that suitable places are found for all pupils affected by the proposed change.
The news comes after a recent ‘special measures monitoring’ inspection by Ofsted, that took place on the 11th and 12th September, which was the first since the school was placed into ‘special measures’.
The report said, “Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time: Leaders and managers are not taking effective action towards the removal of special measures. The trust’s statement of action is not fit for purpose. The school’s improvement plan is fit for purpose. Having considered all the evidence I strongly recommend that the school does not seek to appoint newly-qualified teachers.”
Areas of concern highlighted during the original inspection last year included: the unsafe nature, insufficient progress for those with special educational needs, high number of exclusions and no senior authority.
The period of consultation for the changes to the age range of Steiner Academy will run until Monday 28th October. More information about the consultation can be found on the Avanti Schools Trust website here: www.avanti.org.uk/sc-frome
Both the Avanti Schools Trust and Steiner Academy were approached for comment on the proposed changes and the recent Ofsted report, but responses were not received before the paper went to print.
