Shaldon Primary School: consultation to extend age range

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Proposal

ACE Multi Academy Trust is excited to propose an enhancement to their Primary School education offer by extending the age range of Shaldon Primary School from 4–11 years to 0–11 years of age with effect from 1st September 2025.

This will enable the school to create a seamless and continuous educational provision through the early years to KS2.

Background

Shaldon Pre-School, located at Victoria Hall, Bridge Road in Shaldon is part of the multi academy trust of The Academies for Character and Excellence (ACE)and provides early years provision during term times for ages 2-4. The Pre-School is currently managed by ACE through a separate trading arm ACE Enhanced Services. The Trust is proposing to close the trading arm by 31st August 2025 so that the 2,3 and 4 year old nursery children become part of the school provision. To ensure there is no gap in early years provision, it is proposed that the age range of Shaldon Primary School (also part of ACE multi academy trust) will change from 4-11 to 0-11 years of age from 1st September 2025.
All staff at the Pre-School will be transferring, under TUPE, to the Trust – The Academies for Character and Excellence, on the 1st December 2025. This will enable all Trust staff to be employed within one organisation.

The Department for Education (DfE) has recently launched a School-Based Nursery Capital Grant for which primary-phase schools can bid for funding for capital expenditure towards creating school-based nursery provision. Devon County Council is also inviting bids for capital funding from their Childcare Expansion Capital Grant to create places for babies and two-year-olds.

The Capital Grants are to support the expansion of childcare places as a result of the Government’s increased early years entitlements for working families.

This new funding has already increased the demand for childcare and is one of the reasons why this proposal is being brought forward now, along with the availability of capital funding and the desire to bring the preschool onto the school site.

New Nursery Building

Planning consent, granted on the 28th September 2021, for a proposed purpose built new nursery building on the school site, is in place and extant due to provisional work being undertaken so the application remains valid.

The planning consent and other supporting documentation is available at: 21/01251/FUL | Proposed new pre-school building | Shaldon Primary School Bridge Road Shaldon Devon TQ14 0DD (teignbridge.gov.uk)

This creates expansion to grow the existing early years provision for the local community by increasing the numbers available for 0–2-year-olds from zero to 6 places. Due to the restriction of the existing (Victoria Hall) building, the setting is unable to offer any places below 2 ½ years. The new building will remove limitations to create capacity to offer 10 places for 2-year-olds.

We are committed to ensuring the proposals will not affect the Published Admission Number (PAN), nor the capacity of the school for school aged children or place any pressure on the current classroom space. Our plan is to maintain the integrity of our current classroom environment, ensuring all pupils continue to receive an outstanding education, as per the latest Ofsted. Therefore, there will be no adverse effect on the operational capacity. This includes ensuring the classroom space remains sufficient and effective for all statutory school age children.

Parents will still need to make a separate application to Devon County Council for a place in the reception class if they attend the school nursery.

Should the Primary School obtain the necessary capital funding, this will mean, in effect, that Shaldon Pre-School housed in the village hall will close but, in its place, Shaldon Primary School will have a Nursery operating as part of the school from the 1st September 2025. ACE has experience of Nursery Classes within other schools in the structure.

The school will then be in a position to offer 6 new places for under two-year-olds, 10 places for 2-year-olds and 30 new breakfast and afterschool places. This gives increased accessibility enabling 16 more children aged 0-2 to attend the nursery, along with 14 3–4-year-olds. Provision for 0–4-year-old nursery children will be open all year round and not just during term times. Parents will be able to spread their funded entitlement across more than 38 weeks which will make early years provision more affordable for some families. This will compliment the holiday provision that is already available for primary school aged children. Families will have the convenience of year-round provision on the school site.
Should the funding, to enable the school to proceed with the capital build project for the purpose-built nursery provision, not be obtained, the proposed planned age-range change of the school would proceed for 2-11 provision off-site but could not create places for under 2’s. This is subject to approval from the Department for Education and Devon County Council. The children currently in the pre-school would be registered on the school roll from the 1st September 2025 but would remain in the Village Hall.

The Process

The proposal to extend the age range of the school requires the submission of a Significant Change application to the DfE. The DfE is the decision-maker.

Following the end of this consultation, and consideration of the responses, the Academy Trust is proposing to submit a consolidated application to the DfE. The consolidated application will include a Significant Change application to extend the age range, and the capital funding application.

All responses to this consultation will be considered by the School, ACE Multi Academy Trust and shared with decision makers at the Department for Education. In addition to the significant change application ACE must register with Ofsted to enable children under the age of two to attend. This can take between 12 and 20 weeks and will only be possible if the grant applications are successful so that the new nursery can be built.

The proposed timetable is as follows:

Consultation: 22nd November to 13th December 2024
Proposed implementation: 1st September 2025

Responding to the consultation

You can respond to the consultation by writing to:

Pippa Harrigan, c/o Shaldon Primary School, Bridge Road, Shaldon, TQ14 ODD

or by emailing: Pippa Harrigan – pippa.harrigan@acexcellence.co.uk,

or by requesting an on-line form, by the closing date of 13th December 2024.

Personal data
Should any personal information be submitted through an email or in writing, this will be categorised and no personal information will be shared both internally or externally.