Plans to move children with special educational needs and disabilities 14 miles across Liverpool to a new school have been scrapped.
Liverpool Council ’s cabinet has today moved ahead with amended plans as it seeks to meet its “dramatic increase” in need for school places. The local authority had suggested Bank View School on Long Lane in Fazakerley should relocate to the other side of the city to Parklands in Speke. Following a lengthy consultation this summer, in which parents and stakeholders hit back against the proposals, a new satellite site on the Speke grounds are to be built as an alternative.
Cllr Tom Logan, cabinet member for education and skills, took to social media to acknowledge how “distressing” changes could be for families and hoped changes made to the plans would be well received. He reiterated his apology to the cabinet meeting this morning and said: “We have listened and we have acted.”
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A report in Spring said more than 4,000 children in Liverpool have educational health care plans (EHCPs), an increase of 46% since 2019. The assessment of the consultation said parental feedback was “strongly against moving pupils” from Bank View to Speke “if it meant travelling times would increase.”
The public consultation had also asked for feedback moving Princes School on Selborne Street to Redbridge High School on Long Lane, while Redbridge would move into Bank View as they occupy the same site. However, with Bank View expected to remain where it is, Redbridge will also not relocate.
In order to provide additional places for pupils with severe learning difficulty or profound and multiple learning difficulties it is now being proposed that part of the former Palmerston School in Aigburth should reopen.
Millions of pounds are also being pumped into two city schools to provide more Year 8 plans. The cabinet backed proposals to invest more than £6m in two schools to create hundreds of new spaces, with a report revealing earlier this year that by 2026, the city will be 370 places short for year seven pupils.
All good and outstanding schools throughout the city had been asked if they could increase the number of places they offer. As a result, the second phase of expansion at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School expansion is to go ahead which will create a further 50 places from next year.
More than £3.8m is being made available to add 150 places at Cardinal Heenan High School in West Derby. Archbishop Blanch has contributed towards the cost of the works which are estimated at £3.3million in total.
The funding will provide for additional teaching spaces and a specialist science lab to meet the curriculum needs of the school as the number of pupils increases. Expansion of Cardinal Heenan will provide a new build of six rooms of various uses and remodelling within the school to repurpose rooms.
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