Dumpton Park Drive, School Closure Proposal

WANDSWORTH BOROUGH COUNCIL 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:

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 review its options.

Wandsworth have 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 the 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, Sea 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 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 faced 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 6 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 for closure in January 2025.

Displaced Pupils

In respect of current pupils, the greatest anxiety for parents and carers associated with a proposal is likely to be securing a suitable alternative provision which meets their child or young person’s special educational needs should the school close, as well as the practical changes and upheaval this may cause.

Wandsworth Council are working closely with the school community and other Local Authorities in a planned way to reduce anxieties for pupils and parents and reassure that there is no need to act alone or immediately in response to the notification of this consultation.

The role Wandsworth’s collective ambition to give children the best care and keep children local to their family, friends and community wherever possible, to build trust has resulted in an expanding SEND provision in Wandsworth covering 241.7 provision 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, social and emotional needs linked to 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 a significant reduction in Wandsworth residents at Bradstow over recent years.

Since the commencement of the statutory process on closure, Wandsworth Council SEND services have 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 8 remaining children placed by Wandsworth 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 being introduced 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.

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 Council 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

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 pupils, parents and staff, and should this proposal progress, placing local authorities, and the SCPS alongside Kent County Council and National 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 each child individually as now expected and if needed. We will together think about how we can take forward positive learning from this experience for children.

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Andrew Travers Chief Executive