Members of the Isle of Wight council Scrutiny Committee will receive a presentation by officers on Thursday evening following the recent school consultation.
Over a period of twelve weeks, the council held a series of public consultation meetings, setting out the current position and calling on members of the public to share their views on the options presented for the future of secondary school and post-16 provision.
Views to be shared with Executive
Members will be asked to consider the outcomes of the consultation and offer their views on the possible 11-16 options and their views on the suggested post-16 position to the Executive.
Representation has been received from all schools, as well as the Catholic and Church of England Diocese, local planning authority, Newport Parish Council, Cllrs Blezzard, Gilbey and Priest, Southern Vectis and the NUT (Appendix 5 embedded below).
No merger needed at Medina and Carisbrooke
The Island Innovation Trust, who oversee Medina and Carisbrooke Colleges express their preference for the two Colleges to remain on their current sites, with post-16 provision being offered at the Nodehill site.
The Trust and Governing Body say after considering all options, they believe they have a financially sustainable future with the need for a merger of the two colleges onto a single site.
Possible sixth form merger at Ryde Academy
One option for change presented by Academies Enterprise Trust, the sponsor for Sandown Bay and Ryde Academy, is for the sixth form offer from both academies to be provided on one site at Ryde Academy. This vision was first presented to the council in May 2012.
AET also say they support both options one and two as set out in the consultation document and would work with the Education Funding Agency to ensure investment in a new building would provide exceptional facilities for 1,500 pupils at Ryde and 1,200 pupils at Sandown Bay.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” say College
Governors at the Isle of Wight College recognise the need for change and say “doing nothing is not an option”.
They believe a small number of larger providers for A-level education would be in the best interests of students. One or two centres would enable the providers to offer the highest quality learning experience, they say.
The College’s preferred proposal is for the introduction of tertiary model of education with a single sixth form college, the college offering a range of vocational education and secondary schools offering just key stage 3 and 4 provision.
Impact on public transport
Southern Vectis say the merger of Medina and Carisbrooke would have a significant impact on public transport, pointing out the Medina site is currently well-served by public transport, whereas the Carisbrooke site is less so.
The company go on to say that concentrating post-16 provision on one site would also have a significant impact on public transport. Should that option be chosen, the company would need to work at an early stage with the council to review their current network.
Local planning authority
Although the planning authority does not offer objection or support for any of the options, it does have concerns about the impact to the highways network should there be any change to the provision of education on any of the current sites.
Read the reports
Full details of the consultation can be found in the papers below.
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Scrutiny Committee June 2015 Paper C
Scrutiny Committee June 2015 Paper C – Appendix 5
Paper C – AIsle of Wight Education Consultation 26 Jan – 30 Apr 2015ppendix 6[1]
Article edits
16th June at 10.23am – removed reference to subject being discussed at Executive committee.
Image: Chris Potter under CC BY 2.0
