Reading grammar school plans to increase places by 2024

Kendrick says it will plan 'targeted activities, with particular emphasis on disadvantaged students'

A girls' grammar school is planning to create more places for secondary age students.

Kendrick School in Reading has launched a consultation on plans to add 180 places by 2024 as part of a nationwide selective school expansion programme.

The school, which has 10 applicants for every place, said it wants to meet "rising aspirations and local demand".

Critics say unless local children are given preference it will not ease the overall shortfall in available places.

"I'm not sure it's a solution," said Cornelia Cazey, whose daughter passed the test but failed to get a place at Kendrick this year.

"I would appreciate if children in Reading would get some form of allowance that they would get in over other children from further away, provided they have passed the requirements of the school, because it is a local school," she said.

Grammar schools: What are they?

Grammar schools are controversial because they select pupils on the basis of the 11-plus ability test, which children take at the age of 10 or 11.

Kendrick School said in its proposal that it aims to work "more closely with local schools to raise aspirations as well as challenge any preconceptions about the selective education at Kendrick School".

"Targeted activities, with particular emphasis on disadvantaged students, will be planned," it added.

Reading Borough Council has been seeking alternative solutions to the expected increase in the secondary school age population by 2020.

It has put forward plans to build a new 900-place free school on land at Richfield Avenue, which would open in September 2021.

The council said it had a "duty" to "meet the demand for school places".

In March, the BBC reported that one in eight pupils were not offered any of their preferred school options in Reading.

A total of 230 pupils were allocated to schools not listed on their options list compared to 67 in 2017.