SCHOOL CONSULTATION: CHANGE OF PAN

The purpose of this communication is to provide an opportunity for stakeholder views on the change of the PAN (pupil on roll number) from 75 to 60 per year group. We are making a request to the Department for Education to change the PAN from September 2025.

Willow Tree Community Primary School has been operating as a two-and-a-half-form entry school for many years.

We have looked closely at statistics for place planning in the area for Willow Tree and other local schools and can see that moving to a two-form per year group set-up (PAN 60) – rather than the mixed-age classes that a PAN of 75 would suggest – is the best option for our children. This will avoid situations of oversized classes or where, for example, 70 children are admitted by the local authority, meaning that additional class teachers and support, as well as additional indoor and outdoor learning areas, would be required for 10 children.

At Willow Tree, we feel that it is important to be able to maintain effective provision and to ensure that each year group maintains the best level of teaching, support and access to resources, without the risk of single classes becoming oversized which is currently possible with the existing PAN. 

We would maintain our contact with the local authority as well as the other NSAT and local schools going forward to monitor the availability of places in the local area. Should there be a significant change in the demand in Harrogate, then we would work with the local authority to help provide a solution. 

Our admissions statement and policies are available on our school website for your information, reflecting the updated Admissions Code 2021.

The consultation will run until 22 December 2023, after which we will seek permission to extend the change to our admission arrangements from the Department of Education (DfE).

We welcome the thoughts and responses of all members of the school’s community. You can let us know your views by completing the consultation online or by sending your comments or suggestions to the NSAT Director of Governance and Compliance at the school’s postal address, or by email to: governance@nsat.org.uk

SCHOOL CONSULTATION: CHANGE OF TIMES OF THE SCHOOL DAY

In March 2022, the Government introduced a non-statutory expectation of a 32.5 hour minimum core school week by September 2023. In the DFE non-statutory guidance “Length of the School Week” (July 2023), the deadline to meet this expectation was deferred to September 2024 at the latest, in recognition of the pressures facing schools.

Willow Tree Community Primary School currently operates a staggered start and end to the school day, with different drop-off and collection times for each year group. This soft-start approach is a model that the school moved to following the COVID pandemic and equates to a school week of 31.25 hours.

Currently two school staff are on duty on the gates for over 30 minutes each morning and afternoon, whilst parents and children are arriving and leaving the site. This represents over ten hours a week of time which could be better deployed to support children’s learning. The soft-start approach means many children do not arrive until the end of their 10-minute window, leading to potentially further lost learning time.

In order to meet the 32.5 hour minimum school week, we propose to add 15 minutes to each school day and bring all year groups start and end times together.

We propose that the school day would therefore begin at 8:45am each morning and end at 3:15pm for all year groups. We wish to implement this change from 1^st September 2024.

We welcome the thoughts and responses of all members of the school’s community. You can let us know your views by completing the consultation online or by sending your comments or suggestions to the NSAT Director of Governance and Compliance at the school’s postal address, or by email to: governance@nsat.org.uk