Cabinet decision due on primary and special schools plan

by Hammersmith and Fulham Press Office
22/08/2007

New school for children with autism planned

The council has been consulting residents on plans to reshape primary and special needs education in the borough, so that the places on offer better match the needs and aspirations of local parents and their children. A report will be considered at a Cabinet meeting on 10 September which recommends going ahead with the proposals to:

• build a new state-of-the-art Queensmill School for children with autism on the Gibbs Green site
• set up a new special needs centre at Langford Primary School
• close Peterborough Primary School. The council is in active negotiations with the French government to open a bilingual primary school on the Peterborough site once it becomes available. The new school would operate in partnership with a local state primary school.
• support Canberra Primary School and Randolph Beresford Early Years Centre in developing a closer partnership.

“We want more local parents to choose our primary schools for their children,” says H&F Council’s cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Antony Lillis. “We have a large number of surplus places in our primary schools and cannot afford to continue to run schools which are little more than half full. We also want to build on the success of Queensmill School, one of the country’s best state schools for children with autism, by providing it with vastly improved premises – a move which is hugely important to the children who will benefit.”

A new school for children with autism. Subject to approval of the funding, the report recommends giving the go-ahead to relocating Queensmill School from its present five-storey Victorian building in Fulham, which is not ideally suited to children with autism, to a state-of-the-art building in West Kensington. Jude Ragan, headteacher of Queensmill School, said, “We have worked very hard to overcome the drawbacks of our present building and our good practice has been recognised by the National Autistic Society. However, we very much hope to move to a new site where there is more space, uncluttered and calm surroundings and separate rooms for speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy as well as specialist areas of teaching such as food preparation, art, music and science.” 

The new Queensmill building would be on the site of Gibbs Green School, with the small number of pupils at Gibbs Green moving to the new centre on the Langford Primary School site.

Langford special needs centre. Expanding facilities on the site of Langford Primary School, in Fulham, to include specialist support for pupils who are having difficulties in mainstream primary schools would offer greater opportunities to reintegrate these children back into mainstream school. Langford headteacher Anne-Louise De Buriane said, “We could create a successful – perhaps exemplary – model of how to meet the needs of these children within a mainstream school.”

Peterborough Primary School. Almost 40% of the places in community primary schools in south Fulham are unfilled so proposals to remove this spare capacity are also included in the review. It is recommended that Peterborough Primary School closes because it has fewer pupils than any of the other three local community schools, the lowest attainment levels in national tests and no permanent headteacher. The council aims to retain the site for educational use and is in active negotiations with the French government to open a bilingual primary school on the Peterborough site once it becomes available. The new school would operate in partnership with a local state primary school.

“We plan to go ahead with the proposal to close Peterborough Primary School, having looked at a range of other proposals,” says Cllr Lillis. “We will make sure the children affected get every support in moving to neighbouring schools, or to other places their parents choose. While I don’t underestimate the strength of feeling of those immediately affected by the planned closure, it is the job of the local authority to make the difficult changes needed to ensure our schools provide for the future needs and aspirations of local children and families. We are also in discussions with the French government about opening a bilingual primary school on the Peterborough site, which would offer exciting educational opportunities for local French and English-speaking children.”
 
Canberra and Randolph Beresford. The report recommends continued support from the council for further discussions between the governing bodies of Canberra Primary School and Randolph Beresford Early Years Centre, in White City. 

The report is published on the council’s website at http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Images/CabinetAgenda10092007_tcm21-85000.pdf

Hammersmith and Fulham Local Education Authority
Public Notice of Proposal - Peterborough Primary School (pdf)

Hammersmith and Fulham Local Education Authority
Public Notice of Proposal - Gibbs Green Special School (pdf)

Background information:

• If the Cabinet agrees the report, Peterborough Primary would close at the end of the summer term in 2008. Pupils would transfer to other local primary schools. 
• Peterborough Primary had only 143 pupils on its roll in January 2007 (excluding nursery pupils), fewer than at any other community primary school in south Fulham.
• Pupils’ level of attainment in key stage two national tests for 11 year-olds was 187 in 2006 (the combined scores in English, maths and science) out of a possible maximum score of 300. This was lower than at any other community primary school in south Fulham.
• Peterborough’s value added score, showing the progress pupils make from ages 7 to 11 was 99.9 in 2006. This was lower than at any other community primary school in south Fulham.