Could proposed Kettering boys' school now become mixed-sex?

A Government-approved new Kettering boys’ school could now become mixed-sex after a fresh consultation was launched.

Hanwood Park School for Boys, the first secondary school in the town in a generation, was given the green light in 2021 with hopes it would open from 2024.

Officials planned for the free school, at the town’s Hanwood Park development where up to 5,500 homes will be built, to educate boys aged between 11 and 16.

But a new consultation is asking for views on it also opening to girls after some stakeholders indicated that it was their preferred option.

Parent Bernadette Leather moved to Hanwood Park in 2018 and set up a petition to make the proposed new secondary school a ‘school for all’. Her daughter would be directly affected if the school did open in 2024 as a boys’ school, as that is when she is due to start secondary school.

Bernadette said she was pleased that a new consultation has been launched – but said it was tinged with cynicism over whether it would make a difference.

She said: "Hanwood Park was created as a self-sufficient community where everyone would be able to work, go to school and have access to all the facilities within 15 minutes of where they live.

"A lot of people moved to the area on the promise of these nearby schools and it was a shock to everybody that this was suddenly going to be a single-sex school. Everyone I have spoken to doesn’t want it to be single-sex. It just doesn’t make sense.”

The free school plan was first proposed in 2019 by Kettering’s Southfield School, which later became part of the Orbis Education Trust.

A statement on the consultation website, which is open until March 5, said: “Since the time the bid was initially approved, some stakeholders have expressed a preference that the new school should provide a mixed, rather than single-sex education, and that a mixed-sex offer would better meet the needs of both the growing community of Hanwood Park and the Kettering area as a whole.

“Both Orbis Education Trust, as the body that will operate the new school and North Northamptonshire Council, as the local education authority, wish to provide a new school that is best placed to meet the needs and wishes of the local community and to develop the new provision in collaboration with all local stakeholders.

“As such, each party has agreed that the best, fairest and most transparent method of responding to the opinions expressed by some stakeholders on whether the new school should be a single or mixed sex provision, is to conduct a period of consultation on the matter.”

The issue was raised in the House of Commons last week by Kettering MP Philip Hollobone, who said: “Understandably, there is much local support for the secondary school to be open to boys and girls.”

A North Northamptonshire Council spokesman said: “The new consultation was in response to community feedback and the opening date will be subject to planning approval for the broader development.”

The consultation can be found here.