Purpose

Hawthorns Primary and Springfield Infant and
Nursery schools in Worthing, Maidenbower Infant and Nursery, Brook Infant and
Nursery and St Margaret’s CE Primary schools in Crawley and
Slinfold CE Primary school near
Billingshurst, are all schools that cater for children aged four to
eleven, or four to seven, with onsite nurseries or pre-schools for
two-, three- and four-year-olds.  It is
proposed that the schools incorporate the current pre-school
nursery provision within the age range of the maintained primary or
infant schools, extending the age range by two years so they serve
two- to eleven-year-olds, or two to seven-year-olds.
 
This age range change would assist in
simplifying the transfer of Hawthorns Primary school to the
Schoolsworks Academy Trust which is due
to take over the sponsorship of the school as an academy, from
February 2024.  The other schools are
not intending to academise at present,
but by regularising the age range, the process will be simplified
should any of the schools wish to do so in future.
 
The process to change the age range of a
school needs to be undertaken in accordance with the Department for
Education’s statutory guidance, which consists of a number of
stages. The first stage, to undertake an informal public
consultation, was completed during the early autumn and feedback
received indicated that, overall, more respondents supported than
objected to the proposed change of age range at all
schools.  Therefore, it was decided to
progress the proposals to the next stage; in November 2023, formal
statutory proposal notices were published for a four-week period
seeking any additional representations on the proposed change of
age range at the six schools.  One
representation was received within this timeframe, for St
Margaret’s CE Primary, which was in support, therefore it is
proposed to progress to change the age range at the six schools
from January 2024.

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young
People, Learning and Skills has approved:

(1)The change of age
range at Maidenbower Infant and Nursery
and Brook Infant and Nursery Schools in Crawley, and Springfield
Infant and Nursery in Worthing, from four to seven-years of age, to
two to seven-years of age, to come into effect from January
2024.
 

(2)The change of age
range at Hawthorns Primary in Worthing, St Margaret’s CE
Primary School in Crawley, and Slinfold
CE Primary School, from four to eleven-years of age, to two to
eleven-years of age to come into effect from January 2024.