Proposal for the removal of boarding provision at Sunnydown School

Overview

Surrey County Council, is proposing to remove the boarding provision at Sunnydown School.

Sunnydown School is a single sex local authority maintained special educational needs school for boys aged 11 to 16 years in Caterham, South East Surrey. The school has been oversubscribed since 2014, and currently has 80 pupil places and provides 23 residential beds. In 2017, the boarding provision was reduced from 33 residential beds.  

Surrey County Council is proposing that the boarding provision at Sunnydown School is removed from June 2021.

Should the above proposal be agreed, it will be proposed that the number of specialist school places at Sunnydown School is expanded by 20 places from 80 to 100. The expansion will utilise existing space and capacity which is currently used as boarding provision on the site. This will be subject to a separate consultation process.

Sould the proposal to remove the boarding provision be agreed, the refurbishment of the residential provision will take place in August 2021. These will be modifications to the interior of the school and are unlikely to require external planning permission. This will help to limit the disruption to the special educational provision of pupils who already attend Sunnydown.

Surrey County Council and Sunnydown School would like to seek your views on this proposal.  The consultation will open on Monday 22 February 2021.

We will hold an online public meeting for parents and any other interested parties to discuss the proposals and to hear the views that people have. As a public meeting, it is open to all. If you would like to attend, please email schoolorg@surreycc.gov.uk to register your interest and you will be sent a link to the online event.

The online event will be held on Wednesday 10 March at 7pm. There will be a short presentation followed by questions and answers. Please join to share your views and ask questions. You do not have to have a child at the school to join the meeting.

Why your views matter

We are now undertaking a consultation on the proposed removal of boarding provision from Sunnydown School. The Related Documents below contain the detailed proposal.

Please let us know what you think about the proposals

- either by completing the Online Survey

- or by using the response form in the Related Documents below.

The deadline for returning/submitting consultation responses is Monday 19 April 2021.

What happens next

At the end of the consultation period, SCC will collate and review all of the responses received and share these with the school and publish them on the Surrey Says website.

Subject to the outcome of the consultation we intend to publish a Statutory Notice at the school, in a local newspaper and on the Surrey Says website stating our intention to decommission the residential offer at Sunnydown School. There will be a four-week statutory consultation period for further representations to be received by the council.

All representations will be reviewed before a final decision is taken by the Cabinet Member for All-age Learning Decisions in July 2021.