Headteacher Karen Edwards has experience of promoting walking to school. At her former school in Henley, she carried out some heavy campaigning to get a crossing installed, as well as promoting alternatives such as parents joining together, walking buses and arranging for cars to be parked further away from the school. There are all sorts of things that can be set up but there needs to be some creativity and for the community to work together.
We appreciate that the location of our temporary site makes it very unlikely that children from the north of our catchment will be able to walk to school. However, our permanent site, on Upper Warren Avenue is within walking distance of around two thirds of the catchment area.
The Heights Trust sought the views of many parents, teachers and other community members prior to establishing the vision for the school. It was clear that smaller class sizes were an important aspect to these stakeholders and therefore became a key feature of our vision. Our bid was approved on the back of our formal Evidence of Demand survey, which (at time of submission) 289 people completed. Of these, 99% were in favour of our vision. It was this vision that the bid was approved upon and so not something we are able to change at this stage.
We were also aware that St Martin’s Primary were due to expand, partly addressing the need for an additional 60 places in North Reading. It was therefore felt that a Published Admissions Number (PAN) of 50 per year would be appropriate.
In the bid, we had to demonstrate that the school could be financially viable with a smaller PAN. This was achieved by not using an education provider to manage our bid, with the majority of the work being carried out on a voluntary basis by members of The Trust. These figures have been scrutinised and approved by the Department of Education.
