Two Dover Primary School To Merge

Two Dover primary school will merge this September, but they will remain in their existing buildings for the time being.

The decision by Schools Adjudicator Alan Parker follows an appeal by Melbourne Community School against Kent County Council's decision to close the school and move all the pupils to The Powell School.

Emotions ran high at a public meeting, attended by Mr Parker at Melbourne School as staff, parents and pupils made passionate pleas for the schooll to be left as it is.

Melbourne has been specially adapted to cater for children with disabilities, some of them severe. The adjudicator was told how pupils who had been excluded from other schools had flourished once they attended Melbourne.

However, Mr Parker has decided that both Melbourne and The Powell School should close, and a new community primary school should be created on The Powell site at The Linces.

Mr Parker says that the two schools should be brought together through a "carefully managed process over a longer timescale".

"Consolidation on a single site needs to be managed in such a way as to minimise disruption for those living on the upper Buckland estate," he said.

Whilst approving the merger, he says the new school should operate initially on the two existing sites to allow the creation of a single school to serve the whole community whilst meeting the needs of those who might otherwise be most disadvantaged, by keeping the Melbourne building in use.

It is expected that a new governing body will be created, and a new head appointed to lead the school which will also have a new name.