Cluster Reviews of School Place Planning in May/June 2007

In May last year the Children's Services Review Panel agreed to establish a process to keep the planning of school places across the county under regular review, and this has been a topic of discussion with a range of partnership groups and at area headteacher and governor meetings.

We have already begun reviews of secondary provision in the Western and Central Areas, and a review of the Wells cluster. We now plan to carry out the initial collaborative review of school places in all clusters across the county, with the exception of those clusters reorganising in September 2007 and 2008. These reviews will focus on the primary phase, but will be of relevance to High Schools.

Pilot reviews to establish the process are already underway in the Hunstanton, Aylsham, Diss and Acle clusters.

These first stage reviews will mostly take place during the two weeks either side of the summer half term (beginning 21 May and 4 June). They will consist of:

• an initial meeting of headteachers with the lead officer to discuss the process, consider information packs of pupil number and premises data, and identify the general issues that arise



• visits by the lead officer to each school, including the cluster secondary, to consider the school specific data and issues with the headteacher



• a concluding meeting with all headteachers and two governors from each school to jointly consider the information and emerging issues together with any potential options



• The lead officer will prepare a summary of the review in the cluster, highlighting issues, any emerging options and recommendations for future more detailed work. The summaries from all the clusters will be reported to Children's Services Review Panel in the Autumn

All schools to be included in the review will be contacted very shortly to arrange dates for meetings to be set up during the review period.

Click for a more detailed briefing for headteachers.

Click for a list of the lead officer for each cluster.