Two MPs who are backing a campaign to gain a new non-selective secondary school say they know there is a need for one and have vowed to prove it after a “disappointing” meeting with a government official.
Cranbrook pupils have faced lengthy trips to schools in other parts of the county ever since the closure of the High Weald Academy, formerly Angley School, in 2022.
Although there is a grammar school in the town, less academic pupils from Cranbrook and its surrounding villages have had to travel to Mascalls in Paddock Wood (11.4 miles), Homewood in Tenterden (10 miles), Cornwallis in Maidstone (10.9 miles) or Uplands in Wadhurst (12 miles).
That means long bus journeys of up to an hour each way, plus an inability to fully take part in after-school clubs.
A parents’ group, supported by the local parish councils, called Support Weald Schooling (SWS), has been vigorously campaigning for a new non-selective school for the town.
On Monday, July 21, Katie Lam (Con), the MP for the Weald of Kent, and Mike Martin (Lib Dem), the MP for Tunbridge Wells, met Dame Kate Dethridge, the Department for Education regional director for the southeast, at Portcullis House in Westminster, to push the case for a new school in Cranbrook.
But Dame Kate told the MPs the matter was ultimately in the hands of Kent County Council, as the body responsible for commissioning non-selective schools in Kent, because the pupil travel times did not fall outside the national guidance, which states a “reasonable” journey time for secondary school pupils was up to 75 minutes.
The MPs did, however, ask the government to provide them with data of pupil numbers in local educational districts, which they believe will support the campaign.
Mr Martin said afterwards: “Having laid out the clear and urgent need for a new non-selective school to serve the many children living in villages outside of Tunbridge Wells, I was disappointed to see little action from the government.
“While it remains a challenging situation, I will continue working with Katie Lam to gather more evidence of the pressing demand.”
Ms Lam said that Dame Kate had said secondary schools needed at least 600 pupils to operate and felt data did not show this minimum could be met in Cranbrook, considering the roll at the High Weald Academy had dropped to 270 pupils before closure.
Ms Lam said: “Locally, we all know how much we need a non-selective secondary school in Cranbrook.
“Nationally, we know how important it is for parents and pupils to have choice over where they go to school, which means there must be more school places than schoolchildren.
“Mike and I will keep working with the Support Weald Schooling campaign to challenge the data from Kent County Council and the Department for Education. We know this school is necessary, and we will prove it.”
David Selby from SWS said: “We are very grateful for the commitment and support for the new school being shown by our two MPs, Katie and Mike. We also share their obvious frustration with the situation.
“The long journey times – which, not infrequently, do exceed 70 minutes – are less the issue.
“It is the isolation that children and communities are feeling as a result of having no local school. The journeys are also often giving rise to safeguarding concerns – with bullying on the buses – which are not being addressed.
“Many parents are resorting to homeschooling as a preferred option – that cannot be right…”
“Together, this means children’s mental health and safety are being ignored.
“Many parents are resorting to homeschooling as a preferred option – that cannot be right.
“Should those children be attending secondary school, the current allocation of places would be insufficient.
“The levels of absenteeism at the schools to which our children are being sent range from 33% to 42% for the number of children missing at least 10% of their timetabled lessons. The system is broken.”
Mr Selby added: “The number of houses which have been built and are currently being built across the 13 parishes which encompass our ‘catchment area’ is phenomenal. And it is increasing. And yet developers are struggling to sell family homes, being met with the reply ‘but there’s no local school’.
“There is also a large number of children leaving the independent sector and needing to be educated in the maintained sector.
“All these numbers add up – but are not being counted.
”KCC has the opportunity to address this but we are still awaiting a response from the new Education and Skills Committee, having received only a holding communication on June 16.”
The Leigh Academies Trust (LAT), which previously ran The High Weald Academy, has opened Snowfields, a new school for children with special needs on the site.
However, there is still spare capacity, which campaigners say could be used to house another non-selective school.
The roll at the High Weald Academy fell to an unsustainable level after a series of poor Ofsted reports persuaded parents to send their children elsewhere.
The SWS group has calculated there are around 520 children in Year 6 in village schools around Cranbrook leaving school each year and looking for a secondary place.
Almost 50% of them will pass the Kent Test (11-plus), qualifying them for a grammar school, but that still leaves 260 looking for a non-selective place, easily enough to feed a new school.
In March this year, SWS announced the result of a survey it had conducted among parents of primary and pre-school age children. Some 1,023 parents with 1,597 children between said they would like the opportunity to send their offspring to a school in Cranbrook.
Parents of existing secondary pupils say the children often have to leave home at 7am and don’t return till 5pm, and that because of the geographic spread of pupils at Mascalls and the other schools, it was difficult for their kids to maintain friendship groups outside school.
