The consultation on the proposed change in age range for St. Oswald's C of E Primary School has now ended.  Thank you to those who provided feedback as part of the consultation process.

Please see the document below with more details, including a summary of the comments received and the school's responses. 

The Governing Body has agreed to proceed with this proposed change and our school's age range will be amended to 2-11 to allow us to provide wraparound care for pre-school children.

Please see the Ozzie's page of our website for more details about the Ozzie's sessions offered to primary age pupils attending St. Oswald's and pre-school children attending Kangaroo Kids Pre-school at St. Oswald's.

Consultation on change in age range of St. Oswald’s C of E (Voluntary Aided) Primary School

The Governing Body of St. Oswald’s C of E (Voluntary Aided) Primary School (St. Oswald’s School) intends to change our school’s age range from the current age range of 4-11 to an age range 2-11.  As our school is a voluntary aided school and the change in age range is a change of up to 2 years, we are required to follow a non-statutory process as set out in the Department for Education (DfE) statutory guidance on making ‘prescribed alterations’ to maintained schools.  This includes consultation with parents/carers and other interested parties.

Details of the proposed change, including the reason for the change, are set out below.

A non-statutory consultation will run for 4 weeks from 28 February 2022 to 28 March 2022.

Proposal to change the age range of St. Oswald’s C of E (Voluntary Aided) Primary School

As above, the Governing Body intends to change our school’s age range from the current age range of 4-11 to a new age range 2-11. 

This proposed change was approved by the Governing Body on 13 December 2021 and by the Diocesan Board of Education on 15 February 2022.

 This proposed change would take effect from 18 April 2022.

St. Oswald’s School has operated a school-led wraparound care provision onsite since September 2017.  The provision is offered to pupils attending of St. Oswald’s School.  Since September 2019, Kangaroo Kids Pre-school, a third-party provider, has run a pre-school at St. Oswald’s School and hires our school’s premises in order to do this.  This pre-school provision currently offers a total of 24 pre-school places for children aged between 2 and 4 and runs from 9.00am to 3.00pm. 

Although families using the pre-school have requested this, it has not been possible for Kangaroo Kids Pre-school to offer wraparound provision for pre-school children as the premises are used by the St. Oswald’s School wrapround care provision before 9.00am and after 3.00pm.  Plans are in place for St. Oswald’s School wraparound care provision to be extended and to offer the full before school and after school provision to pre-school children attending Kangaroo Kids pre-school.

A school offering school-led wraparound care provision is not required to amend its Ofsted registration to care for children over the age of 2 as well as its own pupils, therefore no change to St. Oswald’s School Ofsted registration is required in this care.  However, St. Oswald’s School current age of 4-11 means we are limited in the amount of care we can provide for pre-school children attending Kangaroo Kids Pre-school.  Offering full wraparound care provision requires a change in our school’s age range from 4-11 to 2-11, which is a ‘prescribed alteration’ under the DfE guidance above.

The sole reason for the change in St. Oswald’s School age range, therefore, is to allow St. Oswald’s School wraparound care provision to be extended in order to offer our full wraparound care provision to pre-school children attending Kangaroo Kids Pre-school, as well as primary age pupils of St. Oswald’s.

The above proposals do not result in an increase in the number of Free Early Education Entitlement (FEEE) places in the local area.

Our school’s Governing Body welcomes your views and encourages you to respond with any comments on these proposals by the deadline of 4.00pm on 28 March 2022. You can respond by emailing us at consultation@stoswaldsleeds.org