Angry Shoreham parents demand action after dozens of children allocated school miles away in Worthing

Jade Sowa is one of the ‘angry, shocked and upset’ parents demanding West Sussex County Council reverses the decision to send 28 children from Swiss Gardens Primary School, in Shoreham, 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.

Many of the children are in a ‘bumper year’ at Swiss Gardens – 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.

Jade said: “There’s so many of us that are just completely shocked, surprised, angry and just astounded – especially to get all three of the preferences ignored.

"We know there is an issue with a lack of school places in Shoreham. We don’t have any links there [to St Andrew’s] and we haven’t had any transitions or information. We were really shocked.”

West Sussex County Council said everyone who applied for a secondary school place in West Sussex has been offered one. The council said the ‘overwhelming majority’ of children (96.1 per cent of applicants) were offered one of their three preference secondary schools, and 86.4 per cent were offered their first preference school.

A spokesperson added: “We do everything we can to offer every child one of their preference schools. However, there will be a small number of families to whom we are not able to offer a preference to. This can be for a variety of reasons as detailed in our oversubscription criteria policy and we recognise how frustrating this can be for families in these situations.”

The county council said it has worked with schools in the local area to put in place measures to ‘help ease some of the pressure this year on secondary school placements here’.

"This includes Shoreham Academy taking a maximum 30 additional pupils into Year 7 next year, and all Lancing and Worthing schools agreeing to take a limited number of extra pupils,” the spokesperson said.

"Where schools are oversubscribed, children are offered a place at the nearest available school with space, in line with our admissions policy."

Parent Amy Boyse said the majority of the children had applied for Shoreham Academy, Sir Robert Woodard Academy and Steyning Grammar School – ‘three great schools in their catchment and locality’. She said children were encouraged to visit all of these schools and attend open evenings and taster sessions.

She said the children should be full of ‘anticipation and excitement’ for secondary school but will instead face ‘angst and stress’.

Amy added: “They have all been getting very excited at the prospect, so were absolutely baffled at this placement offer.

"The council knew that children in the system within this catchment outnumbered places available and that eventually secondary school places would need to be created.

"They have had at least seven years to plan and provide a viable option to cope with the number of school places that would be needed in 2023. What they have offered us is not an acceptable option.

“It is quite clear that they knew this was going to happen and have completely failed our children.”

Kieran Scanlon, principal at Sir Robert Woodard Academy, acknowledged a ‘large number of students’, from west Shoreham in particular, were ‘very disappointed’ with how the ‘whole admissions process has gone this year’.

Mr Scanlon said he will be speaking to local stakeholders and the local authority to ‘ensure that lessons are learned’ so ‘things can be improved going forward’.

He added: “Having spent years building these relationships I am frustrated that our link to local feeder schools has been so badly disrupted and year 6 pupils who expected to be here have been offered places at schools that were not on their radar.

"There are things that can be done going forward to make things more logical but this will offer little comfort to the pupils affected this year. We have taken additional students every year for the last four years but the school is now very oversubscribed and a realistic plan for permanent expansion, to cope with this predicted increase in numbers, has unfortunately not manifested.

“SRWA would very much like to be part of the solution and we will be engaging with the appeals process to help ease the current situation as much as we are able.”

However, Andrea Blundell, a parent of twins at Swiss Gardens, said the authorities had let her children down.

“They [the county council] were warned about that at the time but they haven’t planned for it,” she said. “They haven’t made any provisions.

“We didn’t get any of our catchment schools and given this random school in Worthing.”

Chris Burrell, whose son is also affected by the situation, said the council’s decision was ‘bizarre’ and ‘disgusting’.

He added: “Not once has it ever been mentioned this was even a possibility. This is a bulge year at Swiss – something they've know about for seven years – but they've done nothing to ensure everyone has a place at one of the two schools we are in the catchment area for.”

Natalie Fox said she was ‘really shocked’ to discover her children would be sent to a school outside of her catchment area and alleged that the council had ‘not kept in contact with parents’, adding: “They just made this decision and have not given any of us a first, second or third place.

"My son is specifically interested in science which is try we chose Woodard. Science is one of their specialisms. He’s very upset.

"There’s a massive shortage of places across West Sussex. Why should we, in west Shoreham, be picked up and given to a school not in our catchment?

“They need to relook at all those people in west Shoreham and try to give them at least one of the preferences. I won’t accept my son going to an inadequate, failing school.

"They’ve got to do something and quickly. Our children’s mental health and wellbeing is at stake. They feel kind of unsettled.”

Mum Caroline Lawrence said she felt helpless, with the reality of the situation ‘sinking in’.

“We’ve got all these new developments but haven’t got the services to support our community,” she said. “We haven’t got the schools or GPs.

"Everything is being overstretched. The council were not transparent. No one was given the heads up that they should look further afield at other schools.

"Everyone is in such shock. It’s just an absolute travesty. Hopefully we get somewhere but I don’t think we will.”

The council said it was working with school leaders to ‘reduce a large surplus primary capacity’. Pressure currently on secondary school places is ‘expected to significantly drop’ in future years as fewer pupils reach secondary school age.

With many schools being academies, they control their own admission arrangements. The council said many schools do not want to admit large numbers of additional pupils as that can have an impact upon the delivery of education to all pupils and is a factor independent admission appeal panels take into account when considering appeal cases.

A spokesperson added: “Our schools admissions team is on hand to offer support to families in this situation and provide further advice on the options available, including the appeals process, by emailing [email protected].”

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