Agenda item

The report sets out the outcome of consultation with all stakeholders on the future of the School.

Before considering the report  the Director of  Children’s services gave her apologies for  including a  letter in  the report pack from the Department for Education  personally addressed to  Schools  Company  Limited regarding the Academy Sponsorship proposal outcome for John Loughborough School .  The  Children’s Service  should not have included this letter as they were not  the main recipient of this information  and the  error was regrettable. The letter had now been  removed from the report  pack, published on the council’s website.

 The  meeting was provided with some background information about the John Loughborough School. It  was a small  voluntary aided church secondary school with  capacity for  300 pupils and operated by the South England Conference of Seventh –Day Adventists but maintained by the local authority. A review of the  school’s financial and educational viability had been  initiated in April 2012 because a number of agencies had provided support  to improve standards  without considerable impact and continued OFSTED inspections  also  showed no improvement . The council  had worked with  Seventh day Adventists Church  in the review  to examine a range of options for its future   and the review had concluded  that only two options  were open: one  was for the  Seventh Day Adventist Church to pursue establishing the school as an academy and  the council  to consult on the  closure of the school.  Both these options were  pursued in parallel to avoid delay in finding the best solution for current and future pupils at the school.

The Cabinet had in September agreed to commence  consultation on the closure of the school  whilst  a potential sponsor for the school  was sought. The Cabinet  were clear that they  would halt the consultation on the closure if  a sponsor  was found  to support the school as an academy and this still remained the case.  

 Following the decision by Cabinet in September, this report set out the responses to the consultation . It was noted that 80% of respondents were opposed to the closure of the school.  However the council were required to weigh  this against factors such as the school’s current  education standards, past GCSE results, past support provided to improve  standards  and the  current position on  finding a sponsor for the school. Therefore, the report recommended  that the  council now publishes a statutory  notice to close the school across all year groups with effect from September 2013. 

 Before  making this  decision, the Cabinet Member for Children highlighted some  responses in the consultation which contended that the school was financially viable and that  African  and Caribbean Children did well at the school .It was confirmed that the financial viability of the school had been examined, in the review, and this  had concluded that  the school   could not continue without subsidy. The report further contained exam data  which showed  that  African and  Caribbean children do not do better  at the John Loughborough School than  overall African and Caribbean students in Haringey schools.

 The Cabinet Member for  Children having considered the  information in the report and  responses to questions :

RESOLVED

1. That the Council publishes a statutory notice to close the school across all year groups with effect from the September 2013 year 7 entry. This recommendation was made because:

• The education being delivered at the school has not been good enough over a long period. This is reflected by the school being in an Ofsted category of concern since February 2007 . The most recent Ofsted inspection in December 2011 placed the school in ‘special measures’ for the second time  because in view of the inspectors.. ‘it is failing to give its students an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading , managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement ‘.

• The one counter proposal , put forward by Schools Company Ltd , to allow the school to become a sponsored academy has been rejected by the DFE who have now acknowledged that, despite extensive work,  they too have  been unable to identify  a sponsor who they believed  had  the required capacity , track record  and experience  to make John Loughborough a success working in partnership with SEC.

• Despite targeted support over the last ten years , no sustained or significant improvements have been made to the standard of education  in the school;

• The GCSE results continue to be significantly below borough and national averages ad the government’s floor standards.

2. The  pupils  currently on roll at John Loughborough would be transferred to other local schools from September 2013. This closing arrangement for  the John Loughborough School was consulted on as option 2 during the consultation process. Therefore the statutory notice  will be published on 07^th January 2013 after which a statutory six week period of representations will follow. This six week period is fixed and the council cannot extend or shorten it)  Further analysis of why this option had been chosen was outlined in paragraph 5 of  main report.