Thank you to everyone who took the time and trouble to complete the survey I launched on local schools. It is very much appreciated.
A total of 721 responses were received from residents in the two Southwater wards, a further 57 responses from elsewhere in the District are reported separately. A breakdown of the results can be found below.
Primary Education
The results show a really positive picture when it comes to primary school provision in the village. Parents/guardians are very happy with the primary schools their child/children attends. I know how hard the Heads of Southwater Junior Academy and Infants Academy and Castlewood work with their teams and I will be sharing with them the very positive feedback.
Secondary Education
I was primarily keen to conduct the survey to help inform the current debate on local secondary schools. As you will be aware this issue is particularly acute in parts of Southwater. A good majority of parents/guardians reported that their child/children were allocated a place at one of their preferred secondary schools (and the majority of those who were not went through the appeals process and were successful). However, under the current policies in operation at local schools for allocating school places, Southwater students are more vulnerable to not securing their preferred school on grounds of distance.
While, since the successful campaign to secure Bohunt in 2019, there are sufficient secondary school places locally for all local secondary school students a combination of a demographic "bulge" meaning more students than ever before are entering secondary school (locally and nationally) and the recent increase in popularity of co-educational schools (including Forest's successful shift to Co-Ed) has created real pressures causing worrying uncertainty for Southwater parents.
The 2023 school allocations left a significant cohort of Southwater pupils being offered places at Burgess Hill Academy, well outside the Horsham area. While this was successfully resolved with all these pupils subsequently accommodated in local schools this was not the only concern with the allocation process and there are worries that similar problems will arise with the 2024 allocations.
Historically Southwater residents had seen merit in local children being educated in the village at primary level but then attending secondary schools in Horsham as the local town. This was reflected in responses to the survey (as it has been in the past) with just over half of respondents expressing a preference saying they would prefer Southwater children to attend Horsham schools rather than a Southwater school for secondary education.
This does not mean residents would not like the option of a local secondary school (which would reflect the size of the village). 54 per cent were in favour, 46 per cent against.
However if a new school was only going to be delivered at the cost of significant additional house building 74 per cent expressing a view opposed a new school and only 26 per cent supported.
The current issues around secondary school places reflect a temporary bulge in the number of pupils and parental preferences. Pupil numbers at Primary School have the reverse problem with significantly more early year places being available than there are currently prospective pupils. For this reason the proposed new primary school at Wickhurst Green (which was an integral part of new housing plans when they were proposed for that community) despite the promises made at the time, did not proceed. It is also the case that Southwater Infants School are currently consulting on reducing the number of pupils they are required to take to better reflect their view on current demand given pupil numbers.
In a separate question on whether residents supported or opposed single-sex education 15 per cent supported, 53 per cent opposed and 31 per cent did not express a view either way.
Since launching my survey, Horsham District Council have published their proposed Local Plan which sets out that over the twenty year plan period there will be over 1,000 new homes built in and around the village, as part of which land would be set aside for a new secondary school. This is not, at this stage, a guarantee that a new secondary school will be built: that requires confirmation of pupil numbers/demand and the active support of education providers.
Further Education
It is important to remember that there are different options available to our young people post-16 education; depending on whether they want to explore academic or vocational courses. However it is promising to see the level of support for local choices for further education. Collyers was listed the most times but The Weald Sixth Form, Brinsbury and Chichester College were also mentioned on numerous occasions.
My Thoughts
The results of the survey are published in full on my and I would encourage all "stakeholders" to consider their implications.
From my perspective, my immediate concern is for the students expecting to go to secondary school from Southwater in the short term. We must be able to educate all local students in excellent local schools. I wanted the information from this survey in advance of us learning about 2024 school allocations. While not pre-judging the outcome of local school allocations if it repeats last year's problems we cannot simply rely on suggestions of a potential future new school as the solution, especially as I suspect its delivery, absent very significant additional housebuilding, is not guaranteed. We will need more immediate answers to provide certainty that we can get through the current bulge in numbers with no child forced to travel away from our local area for their education and better prospects for school preferences being met.
For the longer term a new secondary school in Southwater may well be the right answer. However if so we need certainty on delivery and clarity on the consequences as with falling primary school rolls and an ongoing desire in Southwater to be able to access Horsham schools, the provision of a new school in any circumstances is by no means guaranteed. We need a proper debate on alternatives and the consequences of each decision, including on house building.
Thank you once again for participating in the survey. There are few more important issues than the provision of top quality local schools for local children and I am determined that residents' views are reflected as part of that debate.