The biggest shake-up of secondary schools in Colchester since the 1970 Education Act brought in comprehensive education is on the cards – if Essex County Council gets its way. Here, in his own words, council leader Lord Hanningfield explains why closing two of the town’s secondary schools is the way forward – and why parents should go for it.


Working with local schools, Essex County Council educates almost 200,000 young people, and as the leader of the council I am committed to offering them world-class learning opportunities.

Colchester has two outstanding grammar schools. It also has a number of other good performing secondary schools which consistently serve pupils well, offering a wide range of opportunities and have a good proportion of pupils achieving at least five A*-C GCSEs including English and maths.

However, not all Colchester pupils are as well served. Alderman Blaxill, Thomas Lord Audley and Sir Charles Lucas have continally failed to achieve a good proportion of pupils leaving with five-plus A* to C GCSEs including English and maths.

Alderman Blaxill was placed in special measures, Ofsted’s term used when a school is failing to provide an acceptable standard of education, in May, 2007 and Sir Charles Lucas was only removed from special measures in November, 2007, and has still failed to achieve above the national floor target of 30 per cent.

Thomas, Lord Audley has a history of long-term underachievement and, although Essex County Council recognises and applauds the recent improvements made, there are still concerns about the school’s ability to consistently perform at an acceptable standard.

Our desire to offer a better quality of education alone would have led me to consider the future of these schools. However, changes in Colchester demographics have seen pupil rolls fall.

Even with the future growth of housing in the area, a surplus of places will still exist and surplus places mean more parents are able to successfully apply for their children to attend better performing schools, leaving lower performing schools unable to fill their places.

These schools will struggle to offer the breadth and depth of curriculum, or retain sufficient resources to remain viable.

I want to see Colchester served by schools which both meet the diverse range of individual pupil needs and are sufficiently resourced to offer a wide range of opportunities to all pupils.

Essex County Council is committed to ensuring that children go to their parents’ first preference of school.

No parent should feel anxious if their child is not able to attend their first preference school, that their education will suffer. We should not tolerate under-performing schools. Our children deserve better.

If we want to offer a first class education, some difficult decisions must be made.

I am more than happy to make them on the basis of a clear vision, robust information and open and honest consultations.

As some residents may recall, during my time as chairman of the education committee, a review of sixth form provision was conducted in the 1980s due to concerns about the provision of academic post-16 education in Colchester.

Following the review, a decision was taken to close the Wilson Marriage School and to establish the Colchester Sixth Form College. At the time this was met with much resistance, but the Sixth Form College is now one of the top performing colleges in the county and offers excellent provision for pupils in Colchester.

Essex County Council has undertaken a comprehensive review of the situation in Colchester secondary schools and, as outlined in our consultation document, proposes three options.

  • Our favoured option is to close Thomas, Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill and offer places to pupils living in their priority admission areas at the five schools which ring those areas.

Sir Charles Lucas College would be redeveloped as an academy. We feel this option will create a long-term sustainable solution which could radically improve the life chances of pupils in Colchester and raise the success of Colchester as a whole.

  • The second option is to close Alderman Blaxill and develop federation or trust arrangements with the schools without opening an academy.
  • The third option is to re-organise all the non-selective and non-denominational schools in Colchester and re-open them in new or existing premises or locations and in some cases with new names.

This transformation also brings significant investment to Colchester schools, with funds in the region of £100 million being brought forward from the Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme.

This investment will allow us to refurbish, rebuild and resource schools as is necessary to ensure that they are best equipped to offer a world class education to their pupils.

Children only get one education and it must provide them with every opportunity to be the very best they can. Regrettably, this is not always the case in Colchester.

I want to work with parents, teachers and the wider community to deliver a school system in Colchester in which all children have the educational opportunities to enable them to go on to lead successful and fulfilling lives.

CRUNCH MEETINGS

  • Essex County Council is holding public meetings at Alderman Blaxill on November 17, Thomas, Lord Audley on November 19, Sir Charles Lucas on November 25 and at the Community Stadium on December 9.
  • Colchester Council’s policy review and development panel will discuss the plans in public at a meeting at Colchester Town Hall at 6pm on Monday.