A top Welsh school is going back under council control amid a near £600k deficit. Stanwell School in Penarth was being run as one of Wales' few foundation schools, meaning the school was running its own affairs.
The Vale of Glamorgan Council has confirmed the school will now be run by the local authority. The former headteacher Trevor Brown left last year, with his replacement James Mansfield, who has worked at Stanwell for 20 years and was officially appointed as permanent headteacher this month, saying he was looking forward to working with the local education authority.
Under the changes Stanwell’s current system of accepting pupils from feeder primary schools would be replaced with prospective pupils having to live within catchment. Previously some parents from out of the area, even as far as Cardiff, got their children places at Stanwell by being accepted in feeder primaries such as Sully Primary, Albert, Evenlode and Victoria primaries in Penarth.
Stanwell, which has nearly 2,000 pupils, had an annual budget of more than £9.5m for 2023-24, but ended the 2022-23 financial year with a deficit of nearly £600,000. It received an undisclosed emergency pay out from the Vale of Glamorgan Council to stay afloat, while a damning auditor’s report revealed a £283,000 overspend on a new wellbeing centre, poor governance and budgeting.
A year into a three-year recovery, at least 17 staff have been made redundant, subject choices for pupils have been cut and the number of timetabled lessons changed. Stanwell’s governors asked to go back under council control saying it was “in the best interest of school” and would “improve financial management, ensure compliance and support long-term sustainability”.
As a foundation school, Stanwell’s budget was managed by the governing body without oversight from the local education authority. As a maintained community school it will now get specialist financial support on budget management by the Vale of Glamorgan Council.
