Today I visited the St Ivo Academy in St Ives and met with the school’s Principal, Tony Meneaugh and Astrea CEO Rowena Hackwood.
Having already met with the NASUWT, the St Ivo Parents’ Forum, Dept for Education Regional Director for the East of England Jonathan Duff, and my neighbouring MP Ian Sollom, in recent weeks, there are a number of areas to address with the school’s Senior Leadership Team that have been raised with me by some parents.
My most immediate concern has been the precipitous drop in the number of pupils entering the 6th Form, falling from 109 pupils entering the Lower Sixth last year to 38 pupils this year. This was attributed to a perfect storm of factors and I was assured that the forthcoming strategy from the school and investment in the 6th Form centre would seek to arrest the slide. I do remain concerned that unless a bold correction is made there may be even fewer pupils entering Year 12 next year and I look forward to seeing their detailed strategy once it is completed next month. I will continue to monitor this issue closely.
I also have concerns regarding the drop in Year 7 entries and the projection that this will continue to decline over the next few years. I will be raising this with Cambridgeshire County Council as with the continued growth of the local population I am puzzled as to how the only secondary school in St Ives is under-subscribed.
There were also discussions around the culture within the school and I will look to discuss this topic in more depth at our next meeting. I also raised issues around parents not feeling listened to and subsequent reputational damage.
I was robust with Tony and Rowena and scrutinised the explanations for the current issues as such I do thank them for their time today and particularly for engaging with some of the difficult topics raised.
Going forward the school will be shaping its strategy this year and as such it has been agreed that I will meet with the Senior Leadership Team and also Astrea’s National Director of Secondary Education Richard Tutt early next year in order to discuss the strategy. There are a number of areas I would like to deep-dive in order to understand the root-cause of these issues, perceived or otherwise.
With respect to any new issues regarding the school, as agreed with Tony and Rowena could I request that any emails of complaint to the school cc me (solely for visibility initially) in order to allow me and my team to develop a full understanding of any issues and site of the steps taken to resolve them.
