No need to panic over school places
Hope and Glory. Don Bates Marion Crescent, Maidstone. I was alarmed to read your factually incorrect front page article last week, headed “Classroom Crisis”. Regrettably, the interpretation of Kent County Council’s Commissioning Plan for Education, which we use to assess and meet the need for school places, was misleading and flawed.
While I am sure this was a genuine mistake, the county council is deeply concerned that this may cause undue concern and anxiety for families wishing to secure a secondary school place in the coming years. I hope that the publication of this letter will serve to reassure families and prospective students that sufficient secondary school places will continue to be available in Maidstone and across the county.
The article refers to a deficit of 674 places by 2022 and states that this is “despite a new school opening in 2018”. In fact, the new secondary free school and the expansions of existing schools included in the commissioning plan, but sadly not in your article, are in direct response to this forecast demand. Simply put, the planned increase of more than 1,300 new secondary school places will easily offset the forecast demand of 674 places and provide capacity for anticipated future growth in demand. Had the county council been asked for a statement we would have been happy to clarify our future plans, perhaps saving families unnecessary worry. Roger Gough Kent County Council Cabinet Member for Education
Editor’s note: It is never our intention to produce misleading articles and we are happy to publish Cllr Gough’s letter on the situation. KCC’s commissioning report was carefully examined in producing this story. It states there will be a deficit of 674 places in 2021-22, and adds additional places will be required because of new housing developments. We haven’t seen anything in the KCC document stating the free school and expansions will solve the forecast deficit and the report was produced before the school’s opening date was pushed back from 2017 to 2018. they like to call a “keynote” speech about the merits of staying in.
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