Proposal To Change The Age Range Of Louth Academy

Proposal to change the age range of Louth Academy from 11 - 18 to 11 - 16 Consultation

Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust is consulting on a proposal to change the age range of Louth Academy from 11-18 to 11-16. This means there will be no published admission numbers into Louth Academy Year 12 from September 2019.

Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust opened the new Louth Academy in September 2017 with the aim of having an academic sixth form to deliver A Levels but the number of applications has been very limited. Since opening the new Academy, no sixth form students have been admitted.

Key Facts

There are too few applicants of a high enough academic ability to provide the breadth of A-Level courses students require.
There are too few applicants to provide a financially viable sixth form.
There are large high quality competitors who can provide an extensive selection of academic courses. These competitors are post 16 colleges – Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education and Franklin College - which provide free or heavily subsidised transport to potential students in the Louth Academy catchment area.
Detailed analysis of the Louth area by Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education in July 2017 concluded that it was not financially viable to provide vocational courses at Louth Academy.
There are currently no enrolled students in Year 12 or Year 13.
The Department for Education recognises that sixth forms with fewer than 250 students cannot afford to offer a full range of courses.

In January 2019, Louth Academy advised students, who were considering applying for Louth Academy sixth form to start Year 12 in September 2019, to make additional sixth form applications as, if the consultation agrees, there will be no admissions to Year 12 in September 2019. As there are currently no Year 12 or 13 students at Louth Academy, no current sixth form students will be affected by this change.

The proposal can be viewed at: www.louthacademy.co.uk/consultation.

Interested parties are invited to give their views about this proposal in the following ways:

Post: Louth Academy Consultation, Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust, Station Road, New Waltham, Grimsby, DN36 4RZ
Email: consultation@tollbarmat.org
Individual meetings: If you have questions you would like to ask before submitting your views on the proposal, further consultation events will be held at the Academy on Tuesday 23 April 2019 (3pm – 7pm) and Wednesday 24 April 2019 (3pm – 7pm). To help us to arrange these sessions please register that you wish to attend and book a timeslot by emailing consultation@tollbarmat.org or telephoning 01472 310 335.

Replies must be received by midnight on Friday 10 May 2019.

In the interests of economy, letters and emails cannot be acknowledged or responded to.

The next stage

All the views put forward during the consultation stage will be reported to the Regional Schools Commissioner. The views of the Multi Academy Trust will also be made clear in the report. The Regional School Commissioner will decide whether to progress to the next stage in the process.