Statutory Notice - London Borough of Wandsworth

Statutory Notice - London Borough of Wandsworth

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO DISCONTINUE BRADSTOW COMMUNITY SPECIAL SCHOOL

The London Borough of Wandsworth is proposing to discontinue (close) Bradstow Community Special School located at 34 Dumpton Park Drive, Broadstairs, Kent, CT10 1BY.

Contact details
The proposals are being published on behalf of the Wandsworth Council by Ana Popovici, Executive Director of Children’s Services, Wandsworth Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, SW18 2PU.

Implementation
It is proposed that the school will be closed with effect from 31 December 2025 further to the statutory process. A separate OFSTED process for closing the children’s homes will be initiated if the school’s closure is agreed, and it is proposed that the Children’s Homes will also be closed with effect from 31 December 2025.

The statutory requirements and relevant processes have informed the timeline for implementation, as follows:

Reason for closure

Bradstow is a community special school with children’s homes maintained by the London Borough of Wandsworth. The school is located in the coastal town of Broadstairs in Kent, providing education and accommodation to young people with severe learning disabilities who are on the autistic spectrum continuum.

Bradstow School operates within a challenging financial landscape and the unwillingness of some councils to pay the levels of fees needed to maintain the quality of education and financial viability of the school has forced Wandsworth council to look at other options.

Wandsworth Council worked with Kent County Council for a 3 year period, to explore the potential for transferring the provision to Kent County Council. However, in October 2024 Kent County Council decided not to proceed with a transfer. This, combined with the financial pressures facing the school, left no other viable option at that time but to propose closure at the end of the Summer Term, 2025.

Following the pre-publication consultation, in February 2025, the Cabinet Member for Children’s agreed to delay the decision to move to formal consultation until after 24 March 2025 to allow governors the opportunity to engage with academy trusts and select a suitable partner with whom to undertake the necessary due diligence to secure the future of the school. There was also an agreement to support the leadership of the school to undertake a restructure to align resources and staff capacity with the school's income. Initial calculations showed savings of approximately £816,000 per annum through a reduction of staffing that equates to the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 7.2 and amending working patterns to match the reduction of the children’s homes from a 52-week provision to a 38-week provision.

Following this agreement, the council met with 3 interested parties, Ambitious about Autism, Seva Homes and Cygnus Academy Trust to provide any required information to support the governors’ decision to academise. One provider was not progressed by the governors, one provider withdrew their interest, with Cygnus the preferred trust and with whom an application to the Department for Education was made.

Despite fully supporting this process, we were notified on the 29 July 2025 that the Department for Education (DfE) was not able to approve the application with Cygnus Academy Trust. Given the impact of this on the school’s financial position and with falling pupil numbers, added to the aged debt the school already holds, Wandsworth has now taken the difficult decision to re-instate the statutory process and formally consult on closure of the school. The closure of the children’s homes follows a different process, whereby Wandsworth Council will be required to notify the OFSTED of this intention if the proposal to close the school is agreed.

Pupil numbers and admissions

As of July 25, there were only 13 pupils (12 male and 1 female) aged 12–19 attending the school, all of whom reside in the children’s home 38 weeks term time only. All children on roll have an EHCP with Autism Spectrum Disorder as a SEN primary need. Children are placed by 8 local authorities, with 77% of the school population equally placed between Kent, Medway, Newham, Havering and Wandsworth, equating to approximately 2 children per local authority. This number has reduced further from the 49 pupils attending in July 2024 to 32 pupils attending at the start of the statutory process on closure in January 2025.

Displaced Pupils

In respect of current pupils, the greatest anxiety for parents and carers associated with this proposal is likely to be securing a suitable alternative provision which meets their child or young person's special educational needs should Bradstow close, as well as the impact of any changes. In the event proposals are agreed we will work closely with the school community and other Local Authorities in a planned way, and we want to provide parents and carers reassurance that there is no need to act alone or immediately in response to the notification of this consultation.

To realise Wandsworth’s collective ambition to give children the best care and keep children local to their family, friends and community wherever possible, the council has invested £41m in expanding SEND provision in Wandsworth creating over 271 places since 2021, of which £34m is on a purpose-built expansion of Paddock Secondary and Sixth Form School to improve our local provision for children with complex special educational needs linked to their diagnosis of Autism and severe learning disability. A primary aim for the development of Paddock School is to enable Wandsworth children to remain in their local community and successfully retain their close links to family and friends which can be lost if they are placed at a significant distance from home. Although this may not benefit the Wandsworth children currently placed at Bradstow, lack of local sufficiency has historically meant that we have needed to place at Bradstow, and so this investment is part of our future planning for children who present with similar needs to keep them local. This change in strategy has led to fewer placements for Wandsworth residents at Bradstow over recent years.

Since the commencement of the statutory process on closure, Wandsworth Council SEND services has actively engaged with the families of existing children placed at Bradstow to understand need, concerns and to progress consultations on suitable alternative placements in line with parental preference should the decision be made to close the school.

It has been the recommendation to all other placing local authorities to parallel plan with families and commence the consultation process for alternative provision. This will ensure that if the proposal to close is approved, responsible individuals in placing local authorities will have sufficient time to work with families and the staff at Bradstow school to support pupils to integrate smoothly into their new setting.

Of the 4 remaining children placed by Wandsworth in Bradstow as at the start of the pre-publication consultation in January 2025, all have secured offers of suitable alternative provision, with 3 placements accepted and transition commencing in September 2025. We are working with the remaining family to ensure there is no gap in education for their child with appropriate support provided through the transition.

Since we commenced the pre-publication consultation process in January 2025, 19 children have moved from the school, indicating that there is sufficient suitable alternative provision to meet the special educational needs of the cohort of children attending Bradstow school.

This supports the findings of an exercise undertaken by Wandsworth’s Assistant Director of SEND and Inclusion at the beginning of the year to map provision in, or near, the local authorities with children remaining at Bradstow.

Given the school’s location in Broadstairs, Kent, and as outlined in Kent County Councils SEND strategy 2025- 2028, Kent have developed a SEND sufficiency strategy whereby current priorities include reviewing their special school offer to ensure it is appropriate to meet the needs of the most complex pupils. Plans include updating school designations and repurposing existing assets to align with their identified needs. The 24 Kent Special Schools will have one of three designations with supporting admissions guidance, being Complex Learning needs - Profound, Complex Severe - Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs and Neurodivergent with Learning Difficulties. All these designations can expect to admit children with Autism.

Wandsworth’s School and Community Psychology Service (SCPS) will continue to work with the school’s leadership to manage the impact of this proposal on staff, pupils and their families, and should this proposal progress, placing local authorities, and the SCPS alongside Kent County Council Educational Psychology Services will work in collaboration with the school leadership to ensure that children’s transition to a new school is managed as effectively as possible. These conversations and this work will be carefully planned and managed sensitively in discussion with the head and senior leadership to ensure they best meet the needs of the school community as they emerge and if needed. We will together think about how we can take forward positive learning from this experience for children.

Financial Position

Bradstow School operates within a challenging financial landscape and the unwillingness of some councils to pay the levels of fees needed to maintain the quality of education and financial viability of the school has forced Wandsworth council to look at other options.

Some councils, particularly Kent County Council, which owes approximately £4.6m, have not paid any placement fees for a year nor the full fees for much of the prior 2 years. Legal processes for collecting this debt were initiated between February 2024 and in May 2024 but were paused to allow for Kent to complete their due diligence of the transfer proposal. Following confirmation that Kent had no interest in taking transfer of the provision, the legal process was reinstated with the recovery of unpaid fees actively pursued through solicitors. This process of recovery is ongoing.

The financial sustainability of the school requires that the income generated and paid for by councils is equal to or greater than the expenditure (the costs of running the provision including maintenance, overheads and staffing costs).

Adding pressure to the already challenged financial model of the school, which has had a financial deficit for over 5 years now, the significant fall in pupil numbers over the last year has meant that the costs have continued to exceed income even after undertaking the latest restructure. Unfortunately, with only 13 children currently on roll, with the potential for this number to reduce further, and 2 of these still being Kent Council placements who haven’t paid, the costs significantly exceed the income.

The high-risk financial liabilities associated with the school are therefore over £4.6m, with total debt being over £8m, and a further £1m of accumulated school deficit. These amounts are growing every day, and any unrecoverable debt or deficit is a cost to Wandsworth Council and the residents it serves.

The school is close to halfway through its 5th year with a deficit that is only growing at a greater rate.

Impact on the community

An Equality Impact Assessment has been undertaken and updated following feedback from the pre-publication consultation and changes at the school. This has been shared as part of this consultation. This will be reviewed and updated following responses received to the formal consultation.

Whilst we understand that this proposal will have some impact on the local community, it has been put forward in response to the need to manage risk for our most vulnerable SEND children, as well as the sustainability of the overall Wandsworth school system for all our children and families. The mitigations for the impact on the school community are outlined in the EINA and accompanying consultation documents.

There may be some impact to the wider community in terms of a reduction in the staff contribution to the local economy if the provision was to close, however, this is likely to be minimal given many reside in the area. Also, given the significant reduction in pupil numbers, pupil usage of the local community during term time will be minimal, and outside of this time, they will return to their local authorities where their families reside.

Sixth form provision

It is acknowledged that the potential closure of Bradstow School at the end of the Autumn Term 2025 would have the greatest impact on young people aged 16 –19 of which there are 7. Given the small cohort size and their distribution across 5 London local authorities the challenges of finding suitable alternative post-16 provision is lessened and would not impact the area local to the school. Personalised planning would be required to protect curriculum continuity and preparation for adulthood outcomes.

Placing local authorities will work with parents/carers and the school to review individualised needs and identify suitable alternative provision and if appropriate, settings which cater for their needs post-19. This would avoid the need for future placement changes at aged 19, which is when children placed at Bradstow would ordinarily transition. The review would also consider positive learning opportunities.

Special educational needs provision

Given the increasing financial risk and liabilities which Wandsworth Council holds in respect of Bradstow School in Kent, for the sole Wandsworth child in the provision from September 2025, this proposal will ensure that we can realise our ambition to invest in and support children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) locally, keeping them educated and cared for within Wandsworth or as close to their homes as possible. This sits alongside the need to retain a sustainable Wandsworth school system that meets the needs of all our children and ensure as a council we effectively manage Wandsworth resources and protect the long-term interests of Wandsworth residents.

Travel

Transportation for children and young people with EHCPs is clearly outlined in Section 9.214 of the SEND Code of Practice (2015). If the decision is made to close Bradstow school and alternative educational provision is required, the local SEND Transport team would be able to identify if transport would be provided based on the Government guidance on eligibility. Wandsworth is committed to ensure children and young people for whom we are responsible are educated in their community, where possible, to avoid long travel journeys which can be very stressful for individuals.

How to respond: support; objections and comments

Wandsworth Council will begin consulting on the 1 September 2025 for 4 weeks to get views on the outlined proposals. The consultation will close at midnight on the 28 September 2025. Support, objections or comments should be provided within four weeks of the publication date of this proposal (by 28 September 2025) online, by email or by post as follows:

• Online survey: we would encourage you to complete the online survey as the most efficient and secure way to give your views, at
the link or QR code below: https://haveyoursay.citizenspace.com/wandsworthcsd/bradstow-25

• You can email comments to consult@wandsworth.gov.uk – please use the heading ‘Bradstow Formal Consultation’.

• You can send comments by post to the following address:

Bradstow Formal Consultation
Wandsworth Local Authority
Children’s Services’ Executive Support Team
5th Floor
Wandsworth Town Hall
Wandsworth High Street
London
SW18 2PU

• Hard copy - if you need to request a paper copy, a different language or format, or if you need any support to take part in the consultation, please call or text the Children’s Services Executive Support team’s dedicated Bradstow consultation mobile number at 07779 868995 or email consult@wandsworth.gov.uk (please put ‘Bradstow Consultation’ in the email heading’).

Upon concluding the formal consultation stage, all views will be considered by Cabinet (November 2025) as to whether to proceed with the proposals. A decision may be called in for scrutiny within three working days of the decision being published.

Dated this twenty eighth day of August 2025.