Governors

On February 22nd 2010 the Governors of the Stanway Federation wrote in the following terms to the Cabinet Member for education at Essex County Council to advance the proposal that instead of expanding onto the site of the Heath School in Winstree Road, we expand onto the TLA site in Monkwick.

"As you know our Federation is due to expand the Stanway School and close the Thomas Lord Audley school over the five years from September 2010.  Formally the proposal is that we build, with BSF funding, on the site of the Heath School site on the other side of Winstree Road.  The governors prefer, however, to expand on the TLA site with an estimated saving in capital cost of some £10million.

There are further significant benefits including: avoiding pupils crossing the Winstree Road, no requirement for 12 extra buses with consequential revenue saving to the LA, no increase in pupil deliveries and collections, ability to expand the intake in future years if pupil numbers so justify, and public support for the proposal."

Stephen Castle responded that he would like to discuss these issues and that he would be visiting us within the process of preparing a 'Strategy for Change' which is required by the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) process.

The new Government has yet to announce where the budget reductions required to address the country's financial deficit are to fall, so we don't yet know if the BSF project for Colchester will survive.

In either case the Stanway Federation proposes to maintain quality secondary education  on the Thomas Lord Audley School site. That will be achieved with a single school on a split site or by two separate schools in hard federation.

Brian Palmer
Chair, The Stanway Federation