School place planning and organisation

School organisation is one of the building blocks of school improvement and of young peoples’ achievement

Ensuring there are sufficient school places remains a core duty of a Local Authority. The road to school improvement starts with the prediction of numbers on roll and the provision of places.  The  Local Authority not only needs to provide enough places for all the young people it is required to educate, but also to ensure a good match between the number of young people and school places to secure good value for money. Getting the stock of schools and access to them ‘right’ creates the conditions for successful teaching and learning:

We work with local authorities and other agencies to help them to:

• Analyse existing provision
• Work on forecast numbers on roll
• Carry out reviews and consultations
• Bring considerable experience and skill to bear on projects

Cambridge Education can provide consultancy services at both strategic and operational level which will give you effective answers to the following issues:

1.   School reorganisation requirements:

• Proposed changes must address:
• Proposed changes must address:
  • 14-19 education and training
  • Surplus places
  • Basic need
  • Schools in the right place
  • Size of schools
  • Specialist schools and academies
  • Choice and diversity
• Agreement on post 16 plans
• SEN and PRU provision and the inclusion agenda
• plans and timescales for consultations and statutory notices, including competitions

2.  Diversity, fair choice and access are essential and will need to underpin the vision and strategy and align with corporate policies;

3.  Key priorities and strategic plans – regeneration strategies, corporate policies, community strategy, neighbourhood communities – the need to join all of this up to ensure that school organisation supports the development and implementation of these strategies – the development of a series of options based on a depth of understanding across the council and communities which also takes into account extended school, integrated children’s services and use of surplus accommodation to enable community use;

4.  Consultation and engagement – vision to reality – following on from 3 above and highlighting the need for a full consultation process with all stakeholders and engagement of the whole community to support the implementation of vision into reality; giving due regard to the political and democratic processes within the authority;

5.  Tackling underperformance and raising standards – seizing the opportunity to close/transform underperforming schools, make use of federations and other structures and maximize the opportunities for collaboration among schools;

6.  14 -19 collaborative post 16 arrangements – that schools, colleges and other post 16 providers can work together in the most beneficial way and that the organisational structure gives maximum choice to students whilst retaining high quality provision; 

7.  Specialist schools balance, reapplications and second specialisms – by working together with schools and communities to secure a breadth of provision building on existing good practice and developing strategies to provide for areas in most need;

8.  Inclusion (including SEN, behaviour, PRUs) – one of the most difficult areas for LAs because of conflicting tensions; equally a significant opportunity for school reorganisation to remove some of the structural barriers to change;

9.  Meeting the needs of communities - the opportunity to provide alternative hours/other provision to meet the needs of communities or groups where attendance is a significant issue. 

Find out more
For more information on our school organisation services please call us on 01223 463966 or email us at info@camb-ed.com 

To discuss your local and national government services needs call Tracy Brown on   01223 463966