West Sussex school placement protest march: 'They may have forgotten about our children but we haven't'

Dozens of Shoreham primary pupils were not offered a place at any of their three preferred schools, with more than 2,000 people signing a petition.

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

Around 300 people – holding drums, banners, whistles and flags – joined a peaceful march on Saturday (May 13) – starting at Adur Recreation Ground in Brighton Road at 10am with participants making their way to the war memorial in East Street. Click here to see our photo gallery.

"It was amazing,” Jade, who helped to organise the event said. “We were overjoyed by the amount of support that we had for our children in Adur who want the opportunity to go to an Adur school.

"It was just fantastic to see how much people cared to take the time to show how important this is. It shows the strength of feeling and it will hopefully send a message to the council.

"They may have forgotten about our children but we haven't. We will do what is necessary to make sure that they are considered and they are not just left to be sent to whatever random school is undersubscribed.”

It has been revealed that 37 per cent of Swiss Gardens’ 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 in March: “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.”

Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham – who is supporting the campaign – said the protest ‘clearly demonstrated the strength of feeling’.

"The march organised by parents from Swiss Gardens School – where most of the 50 or so Shoreham children denied a place at any of their 3 secondary school choices come from – follows the packed public meeting in March,” he said.

"Since that meeting, where we heard from local heads, parents and local county councillor Kevin Boram, but no education officers, Kevin and I have been working with the parents to find solutions to this year’s shortfall of places in Adur and a longer term answer.

"The Worthing schools offered as alternatives have been unfairly panned and are certainly on the way up, but the problem is that no Shoreham parents were alerted to the fact that their children might have to go beyond Adur for a school pace. Having been steered towards the Sir Robert Woodard Academy a few years ago when the popular Shoreham Academy became oversubscribed, now SRWA has become a victim of its own success and cannot accommodate the demand from Shoreham.

"With the amount of development going on in and around Shoreham the demand in future years, notwithstanding the county council’s flawed projections, can only go up and we really need to prepare for that and make sure local families have more choices closer to Adur.

“The leader of the council, councillor Paul Marshall, has taken a close personal interest and attended two of the meetings and is due to visit Swiss Gardens School as well soon and I will continue to keep constituents posted through my social media and the FAST website.”

Jade said the county council ‘shouldn't be accepting, with 15 months to go’, that there ‘won't be any other options for the children’.

"We would really like them to have some ambition, recognise failings of the past, make a change for our children now and not to be slow about this,” she said.

“I don't think the appeal process is sufficient because of the number of spaces in the locality. It leaves us in a very difficult position. Our only choice is to take the school we've been offered.

"Some parents are looking at homeschooling or applying to Brighton and Hove schools. That all takes time.

"Why has nothing been done before? Why has it got to this point? There needs to be an independent review. We shouldn't be at this point. There needs to be learnings for the future.

“They seem to be in complete denial that there is an issue. Or that there will be an issue. Morally, they have betrayed our children and our community."

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