A Newport school is hoping to expand and allow more boys from different backgrounds to join, but it’s had its most recent bid rejected, according to the Shropshire Star
Haberdashers’ Adams, a boys’ school in Newport, has had its £2m expansion bid rejected.
The school wanted to build a new teaching block and expand its admissions area to the entirety of Telford; its leaders are currently considering whether to reapply.
Currently, priority on school places is given reserved for the Newport area, but it aims to extend that across the town, eventually.
Gary Hickey, the school’s headmaster, said that this expansion would have helped boys from less advantaged backgrounds.
“We are extremely disappointed to discover that we have been unsuccessful in our application for £2m from the Selective Schools Expansion Fund (SSEF) to enable us to take an additional 30 pupils per year from September 2020,” he said.
“The fund was created to enable selective schools to increase their intake of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. We feel our bid clearly demonstrated how the additional funds would enable us to do this, as our plans would have allowed us to extend our attendance area to include the whole of Telford and Wrekin – one of the most educationally disadvantaged boroughs in England.
“We have a proven record of enabling more disadvantaged pupils to gain a place and our well-known work in the field of social mobility has been documented nationally.
“The governors and I will now consider the Department of Education’s encouragement to re-apply in the next round of funding, the results of which are due around April,” he said.
“If we were to be successful it is expected that any expansion in numbers or changes to our admissions process could still possibly be implemented for September 2020, though if we were to be successful in round two it would probably not take place until September 2021.”
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