West Sussex school placement dispute: 'I can’t promise my child everything is going to be alright'

Around 200 people attend a public meeting at The Shoreham Centre last Thursday evening (March 16), including representatives from all Adur primaries and year groups. More than 2,300 people have now signed a petition.

Jade Sowa is one of the ‘angry, shocked and upset’ parents demanding West Sussex County Council reverses the decision to send dozens of children from Shoreham-based primary schools to St Andrew’s CE High School, in Worthing. St Andrew’s is miles away from any of the pupils’ homes and was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted during an inspection last April.

"We very quickly discovered that it was not only year six children from Swiss and that there were many more children and families affected across Shoreham,” said Jade, a Swiss Gardens parent, in her presentation at the meeting. “And so, our campaign group grew from 28 to 40+ overnight.”

It has been revealed that 37 per cent of Swiss Garden’s children didn’t get any of their three preferences. Many of the children are in a ‘bumper year’ – which had to put on an extra class when this year group started in reception six years ago. As such, the parents argued the council had years to prepare for a shortage of school places this year.

A West Sussex County Council spokesperson said: “The county council has worked hard to ensure that all students have secured a secondary school place for this September and always try to meet parents’ preferences as much as possible.

"We have achieved this again this year for the vast majority of families across the county but fully appreciate the upset and frustration of those who have not been allocated a preference school, including a minority of families in Shoreham. We have admissions staff available to offer support on options available including the appeals process.”

MP and county councillors ‘pick up the tricky questions’

Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, attended the meeting with Kevin Boram, West Sussex county councillor for Shoreham South division.

Mr Loughton said: “Well done to the Shoreham parents who organised such an excellent well-attended meeting at the Shoreham Centre last Thursday to discuss the problem over secondary school place allocation for Shoreham pupils.

"Well done also to the excellent heads of our local schools Jim Coupe from Shoreham Academy, Kieron Scanlon from Sir Robert Woodard Academy and Mia Lowney from St Andrews who gave great presentations on behalf of their schools.

"No thanks however to the officials from the West Sussex County Council Education Department who did not attend and left it to me and the local county councillors to pick up the tricky questions from frustrated local families.”

‘It’s just not fair’

Nina Mansell, whose son goes to St Nicolas and St Mary CE Primary School, said the affected parents ‘need answers’ for their children.

"We need to know why our postcode is disproportionately affected by this,” she said. “There are only four kids in our whole entire year that have been placed there and it wasn’t any of their preferences.

"The kids are going with none of their friends so it’s quite shocking. It’s a tough time and kids are quite anxious about it. It’s just not fair. Why call it a preference or choice when you don’t have one?

“We have basically been squashed out of Shoreham are in no man’s land. It’s incredibly frustrating. I can’t promise my child everything is going to be alright. All I can promise is I’m going to do my absolute best. I’ve been like a dog with a bone because they are not answering me. You can’t let something like that go.”

Jade Sowa, meanwhile, pledged to ‘keep the pressure on’. She was delighted with the turn-out at the meeting, which heard powerful video interviews with some of the children who are directly affected. Each child said ‘I am not just a number’.

“This was to show the impact on their lives,” Jade said. “They could show their dreams and aspirations. It was pretty powerful.

“You’d think any school would want these children. The council have let them down.

"There are a few in the group whose parents have accepted their fate. There are some that are looking elsewhere and the rest of us are appealing. That means the children are in limbo.

"They don’t know what school they are going to in September, what uniform they are going to wear, what friends they are going with.

"Some appeals might work, some won’t. Going to secondary school is a big transition anyway. When you’re left in limbo like this, I can’t imagine what it means for them.

"They’re in a generation that has gone through two school lockdowns where they’ve been isolated from education and social connection with their peers. This is really hard.”

Parents urged to visit St Andrew’s

Mr Loughton said he has offered to work with local parents who are going through the appeals process but would also urge parents to visit St Andrew’s to see what exactly is on offer there under the ‘very impressive leadership’ of Mia Lowney, who is ‘turning things round very rapidly’.

The MP added: "It is in everyone’s interests that she succeeds just as Kieron Scanlon did five years ago when Sir Robert Woodard Academy was out of sorts with a lot of vacancies yet now parents report how pleased they were that they trusted his pitch and how well it had worked out for their children and the school.

“We are also working with the leader of the county council to come up with a longer-term solution to the shortage of secondary school places in Adur, which was not the case five years ago, but which is certainly going to get worse as all the new build now brings new families to Shoreham and Lancing.

"There were tentative plans to expand SWRA and/or Shoreham Academy perhaps on their other site in Middle Road which housed the Kings Manor Middle School until the 1990’s, and these need to be dusted down and revisited.”

Adur Council’s Labour Group, meanwhile, has called on the county council to provide funding so that temporary classrooms can be installed to allow more children to go to a secondary school in their local area.

The group says it is deeply disappointing that, from Bognor to Shoreham, 189 families with children have not been offered any of their three choices of secondary school.

A spokesperson said: “The group welcomes the work being done by the schools and the West Sussex County Council admissions team to handle the oversubscription issue.

"St Andrews School in Worthing, which will be accepting a number of pupils from Shoreham, are doing guided tours for parents and pupils. This will allow them to see what a positive and nurturing environment the school offers.”

The labour group said the problem is a ‘symptom of government underfunding’ of the school system since 2010 and a ‘failure of planning’.