Henry Cort Community College: Consultation launched to move Whiteley school despite residents' preference

The move was one of three options being considered for the school’s future, which is expected to see a fall in pupil numbers once another new secondary school in Whiteley opens.

This new secondary school is planned to meet the forecast demand for school places throughout the Whiteley area once the development, with 3,500 new homes already built and a further 2,000 in the pipeline in the North Whiteley area, is complete.

It would be built with a capacity for 900 places and a scope to expand to up to 1,200 in future if needed. However, in the informal consultation carried out between March and May, the county council proposed three options regarding the future of the secondary school. Of these, 72 per cent of the respondents voted for the first option, to build the new school and keep Henry Cort but with a reduced catchment area.

The second was to build the new school and close Henry Cort, with its catchment area shared between Fareham Academy and Cams Hill School. The third option was to relocate Henry Cort to the new North Whiteley secondary school site, with both sites being used while existing year groups filtered out of the school. These options aimed to address the anticipated move of children from Henry Cort to the new school in North Whiteley in September 2027.

This would result in a reduction in pupils at Henry Cort and a subsequent reduction in its government funding, which is allocated on a per-pupil basis. Hampshire County Council expected that this would lead to a reduced curriculum, staffing difficulties, an impact on children’s educational outcomes, significant financial challenges – and ultimately, an untenable future. After a “careful” review of the comments, the county council has determined that the third option offered is the most viable to protect the school’s future. However, only 22 per cent of the responses from the 1,142 received support for this option.

Cllr Joane Barton expressed that many parents on her division, the Fareham side of Whitley, approach her concern over the “distressing times” for their children and managing their anxiety and the uncertainty for the children around the relocation. However, the councillor said that hundreds of families have been waiting over a generation, spending years commuting for a long overdue school and “they are quite rightly so excited.” But, she added that the new school needs its own and a new identity and that Henry Cort is not just the name of the school: “It’s got history to its own, and so they shouldn’t be carried forward and imported into Whitley.”

Cllr Burton also indicated that while she supports the opening of the secondary school, it shouldn’t happen to the detriment of the Henry Court attachment of Fareham nor the potential growing population in Whiteley. She said: “Henry Court serves the most deprived area in the borough, and its closure will disproportionately affect those who are most disadvantaged, and the children most in need of a good school are those that can have the least opportunity to attend one. This initial consultation has led to an awful lot more questions that parents really need the answer to, sooner rather than later.”

Cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Roz Chadd, approved the recommendation on her decision day (October 25), and while she recognised the decision didn’t reflect the feedback received in the informal consultation, she was “fully satisfied” with the decision.

Cllr Chadd said: “To build a new school in North Whiteley whilst maintaining all the existing schools in the area would lead to the educational and financial decline of the existing schools and the resulting reduction in both the choice and education standards for the families of Whitely and Fareham. The county council’s preferred option seeks to ensure that this isn’t the case. This isn’t a final decision; it’s about going out for consultation.”