We’re starting a consultation with parents and carers of pupils at Homewood College and school staff about proposals to stop admissions to the school and find alternative educational placements for the pupils currently studying there.
Homewood College is a small special school for pupils with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) Needs. The aim of the proposals is to improve the educational offer to current pupils for the remainder of their schooling.
The school has been in the Ofsted category of ‘inadequate: special measures’ since December 2021 and despite the efforts of school leaders, staff and support from the council, the school has not made sufficient improvement.
This has been confirmed independently by the most recent 2 monitoring visits by Ofsted in July and December last year.
The school has been subject to an Academy Order for more than 2 years, but no Academy Trust has been found willing to take over the running of the school on a permanent basis.
If the proposals are agreed, we will work closely with families at the school to find good alternative placements that better meet each child’s identified needs.
The consultation is not about closing the school, as the council does not have the power to close a school subject to an Academy Order. We are in discussion with the Regional Office for Education (DfE) about the future of the school.
However, the council does have a duty to ensure that school placements for children with Education, Health and Care Plans are of sufficiently good quality and meet their educational needs.
The council is currently looking at new proposals for improving support for children with SEMH needs in the city from September 2024.
The aim is to increase provision at every stage for young people through our mainstream schools to meet a wider range of SEMH needs by offering enhanced support to them to do so, while also increasing the amount of available specialist provision.
Where these plans take time, interim arrangements will be put in place to ensure all pupils with SEMH have a quality offer of education.
Councillor Jacob Taylor, co-chair of the Children, Families and Schools Committee, said: “I’d firstly like to acknowledge the hard work by staff at the school to try to overcome the difficulties Homewood College faces. We’re very sorry that the school has not been able to make the improvement needed.
“Our priority duty is to make sure we’re providing the best possible education to meet the identified social, emotional and mental health needs of all the pupils.
“We appreciate this will be an unsettling time and will make sure extra support is in place to make the change as smooth as possible.
“We are continuing discussions with the Regional Office for Education (DfE) about the future of the school but are not able to make any decision at this stage.”