‘Expand city grammar on coast’

Council education chiefs say an annex of a city grammar school in Herne Bay or Whitstable will help cope with an increase in demand for places.

The authority’s cabinet member for education, Cllr Roger Gough, says a satellite site of one of the three Canterbury grammars - or Queen Elizabeth’s in Faversham - is Kent County Council’s “preferred option”.

The alternative would be to expand one of the four schools.

Cllr Gough said: “The need for Year 7 places is expected to increase from 37 in 2019 to 133 by 2023,” he said.

“The preferred option for meeting this need would be to establish grammar provision in one of the coastal towns in the form of a satellite, with up to five forms of entry, of one of the four existing grammar schools in the area.”

In recent years there had been plans for Barton Court to open an annex on the former Herne Bay Golf Club site, but the proposals were shelved in 2014.

Current government legislation prevents the opening of new grammar schools, but not the provision of a satellite site.

Herne Bay county councillor Andrew Cook, however, says there is one major stumbling block for such a move – funding.

“We are fighting very strongly Thursday, January 31, 2019 Kentish Gazette (KG)

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