DISASTROUS intake figures are set to plunge Tudor Grange Academy Redditch into financial crisis.
The controversial school – which, against the pleas of parents pushed through a two-tier system into the town instead of sticking with the borough’s current three tier set up – has just 19 pupils due to start in September 2016 for its Year 7 intake – out of a total of 180 available places.
The figures, from the county council, are only marginally better at Year 9 – the entry point for middle schools – where out of a total of 280 places just 58 have been taken – and education watchers expect that figure could actually be in the 40s as parents move their children elsewhere.
In education money follows the pupil and it means at Key Stage 3 alone Tudor Grange is looking at a cash shortfall of more than £633,000 and close to £1 million at Key Stage 4 (GCSE).
“We told Tudor Grange parents would vote with their feet and they disregarded our views and disregarded everything we said and they still went ahead,” said local schools campaigner Sharon Harvey.
“These figures are catastrophic – you will have a school with a capacity for 1,000 pupils with only 350.”
To survive such a shortfall Tudor Grange will have to rely on substantial subsidies from its Solihull-based parent academy.
An education expert added: “This is going to impact on staff, timetables, streaming, the breadth of subjects it can offer and exam entry fees.
“Being an academy, the full effect will not be felt immediately as their budget will be based on last year’s figures, but it will next year.”
Two-tier was introduced at the request of TGAR, followed by Ridgeway Academy, and approved by West Midlands Education Commissioner Pank Patel who discussed the implications with school leaders at a series of meetings at local MP Karen Lumley’s offices last year.
However parents have reacted by moving their pupils into the town’s three tier schools, across the border to Studley High School and further afield.
Despite requests for a comment Tudor Grange failed to come back to the Redditch Standard.
