New Primary School at St. John's Grange Site, Lichfield
Proposal to open a new primary school on the St. John's Grange Site, Lichfield at the earliest September 2025.
Staffordshire County Council has identified the need to establish a new 420 place primary free school to serve new housing at St. John’s Grange and the south of Lichfield to open at the earliest September 2025.
The new primary free school will be delivered as a 420 place mainstream, co-educational primary school for Reception to Year 6 age groups, plus early years provision but will be opened in a phased approach.
Construction of the residential development on the St. John’s Grange, Lichfield site commenced during 2021.
The county council will keep under review the data on the need for school places, and the opening of the second phase will be driven by demand and further housing in the south of Lichfield.
A consultation was held between Monday 11th September and closed on Friday 6th October 2023 and representations were sought from a range of stakeholders and the local community, a summary of representations can be found below.
We are now seeking proposals from academy trusts to deliver high quality education at this school.
Public Consultation and Summary of Representations Received
Staffordshire County Council actively promotes a diverse supply of strong schools throughout the county, in line with the requirements of section 6A of the Education Act 2011. This includes encouraging good schools to expand and, where there is a need for a new school, seeking proposals for a free school.
Engagement with our communities and stakeholders is extremely important to us. We endeavoured to obtain a wide range of responses by consulting directly with local schools and their Governors, Multi Academy Trusts with schools in the area, local councils, local-councillors, MPs, the Diocese, Trade Unions and the general public where we utilised social media to encourage feedback.
A good response was received from stakeholders and all were in support of the new school.
All respondents felt that the new school would be of benefit to those living on the development identifying more school places in the area as a positive outcome.
The majority of respondents felt the proposal to build a new school at St John’s Grange would have positive consequences for the local community. Those that gave a negative score based this on the fact that the school would be a free school and their opinion was that a maintained school would have a greater positive impact.
Under section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 (the ‘free school presumption’) where a local authority identifies the need to establish a new school it must, in the first instance, seek proposals to establish an academy free school.
Most respondents felt the new school would strengthen community capacity through providing opportunities to bring parents together and through the provision of clubs both in and outside of school hours. There were some concerns whether a free school would provide the same level of community cohesion as a local authority maintained school.
All new free schools are expected to make their facilities available to support the needs of the wider community. When seeking proposals from appropriate sponsors applications will be assessed using the “model criteria for local authorities and proposers” in Annex C of the DfE’s free school presumption guidance plus the county council’s additional criteria, which includes community use. The local authority expects the awarded sponsor to make its facilities available to support the needs of its wider community.
The majority of respondents felt the new school would impact positively on the health and wellbeing of the local community enabling children to walk to school and creating a community hub where people could come together. All agreed with the principle of sustainable travel to school.
Two of the respondents felt there may be some adverse impact on local residents in closest proximity of the school in relation to increased traffic and parking around the school site.
The new primary school is being delivered to mitigate the impact of the additional children generated by the new development and as such sustainable methods of transport such as walking and cycling to school will be encouraged once the school is open.
Half of the respondents felt the new school would have a positive impact on economic growth, with most siting the creation of business opportunities as the main reason.
Some respondents commented on local secondary school capacity. Additional places have also been provided through expansions at two of the three local secondary schools (completed in 2021) and pupil numbers are closely monitored to assess when any additional places will be required to mitigate the impact of housing development.