Tuesday 13 December 2022
Plans are being developed to temporarily re-locate the Sixth Form Centre to the La Mare de Carteret High School site from September 2025 in response to expected delays to the build of the new Post-16 Campus at Les Ozouets.
This follows the decision of the States of Guernsey to withdraw from using R.G. Falla Limited as contractor for the Post-16 campus build.
Temporarily moving the Sixth Form Centre to La Mare, which is hoped will be needed for one year only, is considered the best option at this stage because:
- It ensures the transition of students from La Mare de Carteret High School to the site at Les Varendes can continue as planned in September 2025. Consequently, it supports the delivery of the re-organisation of 11-16 education into three schools from September 2025 as planned.
- It provides certainty and stability for the community; parents know the transition plan for their child to move from primary school to secondary school and this remains unchanged.
- Most students already change sites after Year 11 when joining the Sixth Form Centre so there is no significant change to this process for those students, other than them moving to a different and temporary location.
- Secondary staff have faced many years of uncertainty and indecision around the future model and temporarily re-locating the Sixth Form Centre ensures continuity around the timescales for implementation of the 11-16 re-organisation.
- It avoids the prospect of approximately 1,300 students being on the Les Varendes site in the 2025/26 academic year if La Mare de Carteret High students transitioned to the site and the Sixth Form Centre remained there.
- The La Mare de Carteret High School site has been maintained and has sufficient classrooms and specialist spaces to accommodate the Sixth Form Centre temporarily.
Further detailed work is ongoing to finalise plans; the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture committed to updating the community as soon as possible so wanted to share its current intentions.
Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said:
'Following our announcement last week that the States had withdrawn from using R.G. Falla Limited to build the new Post-16 campus at Les Ozouets, we wanted to share with the community as quickly as possible our plans for ensuring we maintain momentum and continue to deliver the re-organisation of Secondary and Post-16 education agreed by the States.
'While it remains incredibly disappointing that we have been forced into a situation where there will almost certainly be a delay to the full opening of the new Post-16 campus, the plan we are developing secures the transition from four 11-16 secondary schools to three 11-16 schools from September 2025 as planned. It also maintains the recently-changed primary school feeder model, which parents are now familiar with so they know which secondary school their child will move to after primary school.
'Moving the Sixth Form Centre to a temporary home at La Mare de Carteret High School is clearly something we would have rather avoided, but we believe at this stage is the best option to ensure momentum is maintained in other important parts of the re-organisation of Secondary and Post-16 education.
'We considered whether it would be possible to transition students from La Mare de Carteret High to Les Varendes in September 2025 as planned, while retaining the Sixth Form Centre on the same site. While technically possible, this would require substantial reconfiguration of the site to make room for the additional students transitioning from La Mare. More than 60% of Sixth Form lessons are taught in the main school rather than the Sixth Form Centre, so there simply isn't the room to accommodate what would be approximately 1,300 students in total on the site as it is now.
'The community has made its feelings about such a large school very clear in recent years, which was another consideration of the Committee before determining that moving the Sixth Form Centre to a temporary home, for what we hope will be one year only, is currently the best option.'
