Head hits at new schools scheme

    A DOVER headmaster this week came out against a fresh plan to use empty Castlemount school for a co-educational, 1,090-pupll grammar school.
    The new £5 million project, affecting the future of more than 3,000 Dover children, will be put before county councillors at Maidstone on Monday and is sure to spark fresh controversy.
    The £5 million would pay for new buildings, improvements to existing classrooms, work on the playing field, fittings and furniture at Castlemount.
    It is the latest move in the continuing roundabout of planned reshuffling of Dover secondary schools involving the two separate single-sex grammar schools, Astor, and St Edmund's RC comprehensive school. Only Archers Court is not caught up.
    But Neil Slater, head teacher at Dover Grammar School for Boys, this week said despite the new buildings, he believed the facilities on offer at Castlemount would be inferior to what his school has now at Astor Avenue.
    "I am still in favour of a merger with the girls' grammar school but only if it is done properly with first rate facilities. This school is not in trouble with dwindling rolls and there is no necessity for us to move as I see it.
    "The playing fields at Castlemount and the halls that are promised are not as good as we have here on our present site."
    Dr Roger Thurling, headteacher at Dover Grammar School for Girls, did not want to comment at this stage.
    Chris Russell, head of Astor school, welcomed the move, saying schools in the Dover area had experienced accommodation difficulties for more than 20 years.
    "There are many exciting aspects in the county council's latest proposals. As a head teacher in Dover I welcome any positive move to resolve the uncertainties for the benefit of all Dover students.
    "As far as Astor is concerned we know the solution proposed is not our ideal scenario of new buildings but we feel the compromise of accepting consolidation on one site, using existing buildings will offer us the opportunities that we deserve.

Consultation

    If this latest initiative progresses the earliest the grammar school could be at Castlemount would be late 1996, it was estimated this week.
    But first the whole issue will again have to do the rounds of consultation with parents, staff, governors and others.
    There were high hopes that the two grammar schools would merge and move into a new school on a green field site at Whitfield. But that dream collapsed when the State refused to fund the £10 million project.
    So now it's back to the drawing board for county council planners who see Castlemount, empty for nearly two years, as the answer.
    County officials admit the Castlemount acres hemmed in by roads and homes, can offer only limited space for a co-ed. school of 1,090 especially if it should grow towards the end of the century.
    The idea of moving to Castlemount was rejected in an earlier round of consultation. But this time the county has come forward with "broad brush" plans for new buildings that include a VI form common room, studies, language laboratories, assembly hall, science labs, lecture rooms and other facilities.
    When the latest ideas go before county councillors on Monday they will be asked if they will give preliminary backing to the proposal and go out to consultations, or reject the scheme.
    If, eventually, Dover Grammar School for Boys moves out of its building on the hill at Astor Avenue for Castlemount, the boys and girls at Astor will take over their classrooms. Waiting in the wings for a decision on Castlemount are the governors of St Edmund's RC comprehensive school who have plans to vacate their buildings off Old Charlton Road and move to Castlemount, where they could expand.
    St Edmund's negotiations to take over Castlemount have now been put on hold by the county council. An alternative is for £723,000 project to replace temporary accommodation at St Edmund's with a new block on the existing site.