Special school at risk of closure receives council funding

Hill View School (which is operated by the Oak Partnership Trust) lies on Main Street between the A303 and the small village of Ash near Yeovil, supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The school – which was directly funded by the Department for Education (DfE) – opened in September 2024 after years of delays and is now floundering in light of construction issues and lower than anticipated pupil numbers.

While the DfE has provided some funding to address the construction issues, it will not be enough to ensure a high enough standard of education for the existing pupils and those expected to be enrolled over the next 12 months.

Somerset Council is therefore being forced to “carry the can”, providing additional funding through its high needs block – and thereby increasing its risk of declaring effective bankruptcy in the near-future.

Hill View School was approved by the DfE as a free school following a successful bid by Somerset County Council in 2018 in light of the lack of SEND places in nearby mainstream schools.

The delivery of the project was delayed for several years as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the original multi-academy trust identified by the DfE having to pull out in late-2023.

The Oak Partnership Trust was appointed to run the school ahead of its official opening in September 2024 – despite the trust’s concerns about the design and funding structure of the new school.

Within a month of the school opening its doors to its first 60 pupils, the trust was reporting “significant operational difficulties” with the new school, including substantial problems with the fabric of the building.

These includes water ingress (forcing several classrooms to close), faulty gates on the car park (presenting a safeguarding issue), door fastenings which easily broke off, incorrectly installed “non-climb fences” and staff shortages.

The school put short-term emergency responses to these concerns in place by November 2024, but the disruption had caused its pupils to “become significantly dysregulated”, damaging their education and wider quality of life, according to a report to the council’s executive.

Additional staff were secured to avert the school closing at Christmas, but this placed a severe financial strain on the trust.

Following a series of meetings and visits, the DfE agreed to provide £684,000 for the most urgent repairs to the building, allowing the off-limits classrooms to be gradually reopened.

But the trust is still forecasting a defect of £868,000 for the end of the 2024/25 academic year – and without a significant increase in pupil numbers and associated funding, the trust would have to “surrender” the school back to the DfE to avoid bankruptcy.

If the school had to be ‘re-brokered’ to a new trust, it would likely result in large-scale resignations among the staff (who already have high levels of sick leave due to the demands of their roles), additional transport costs for the council and the threat of numerous legal challenges by pupils’ parents.

To avoid such a catastrophe, the council’s executive agreed on Wednesday (June 4) to allocate £1,433,000 from its dedicated schools grant (DSG) higher needs block.

Of this, £353,000 comprises additional funding directly for the trust, backdated to September 2024, to allow it to remain on top of day-to-day spending including staff wages.

The remaining £1,080,000 will cover the cost of educating 20 SEND pupils at alternative sites for a whole year after they were unable to take a place at Hill View in February.

Trust CEO Ian Robinson told the executive: “These are children with untapped potential, whose life chances have been dismissed, not because of who they are, but because of a system that hasn’t worked for them.

“Hill View was created as a part of Somerset’s strategy to change that. It’s a different kind of special school, one designed specifically for this group of children, many of whom are suffering the consequences of trauma, instability and the cumulative impact of exclusion.

“We are proud to be a strategic partner with Somerset Council. Together we have already extended provision at Selworthy School over three sites, and we were pleased to have the opportunity to take on the running of Hill View School.

“As the school opened, the needs we encountered were more complex and more entrenched than we anticipated. But we adapted quickly because if we were to break the cycle of failure, we had to do things differently.

“The decision today is part of a broader process, a step towards a long-term sustainable agreement that enables us to meet the need, meet these children’s needs properly, working together to monitor provision and funding on a timely basis.

“If we’re serious about making a difference, then we must also be serious about investing in that difference. Success for these vulnerable young people will not come cheaply, but the cost of continued failure is far higher.”

Councillor Heather Shearer, portfolio holder for children, families and education, added: “This is a financial problem we’re trying to address together through that strategic partnership, but it’s children who are at the heart of it.”

Council leader Bill Revans expressed concerns about whether other schools in Somerset delivered by the DfE would find themselves in this position sooner or later.

He said: “I’d like to drill down into how we found ourselves in this position.

“We didn’t build this school, and this is isn’t the only DfE school in Somerset where we have encountered dissatisfaction.”

Councillor Federica Smith-Roberts, portfolio holder for communities, council housing, culture, equalities and diversity, added: “How are we here for 2025? We’re building schools for our most vulnerable children and the DfE has got it so wrong.

“It’s really frustrating to hear about what’s happened here. It is not acceptable to allow this to happen, either here or at Haygrove School.

“We’re not just talking about children’s education being messed up – we’re talking about the impact it has on their families.

“The DfE needs to learn from this – we are having to put money in because of their mistakes.”

Haygrove School in Bridgwater was partially shut in August 2023 due to safety concerns, with the DfE promising in December 2024 that it would build a replacement school as soon as possible – most likely on nearby land at Queenswood Farm.

Claire Winter, the council’s executive director for children, families and education,  said that not providing this funding would lead to even higher costs for the council in the years ahead.

She said: “The cost of providing alternative spaces for children who could not be school at Hill View runs into the many millions of pounds. Fixing this is the least these children deserve.

“By September they should be able to use the bulk of the building, and we are expecting 20 more children to enter the school in the autumn, with a further 20 pupils joining in February 2026.

“This is a unique situation – this is a new building, a new school for children with complex needs. There is no other school in Somerset where this decision could have an impact.

“We have had a DfE bid accepted for another SEND school of this time, which is due to be built in the Wells area with a completion date of 2027 – though there have been no spades in the ground at this time.”

Demand for SEND education resources has vastly exceeded government funding for years, with Somerset’s own DSG deficit now predicted to exceed £100m in light of this decision.

The government introduced a DSG statutory override in 2020, allowing local authorities to keep these deficits off their balance sheet and ward off the threat of effective bankruptcy (known as a Section 114 notice).

The current override is due to expire on March 31, 2026 – and without any action by the DfE to extend it or provide additional funding to rectify the situation, Somerset Council would have to issue a Section 114 notice shortly after this date.

Councillor Leigh Redman, who chairs the council’s children and families scrutiny committee, said: “The school has the potential to be an amazing facility for young people, and the sooner we can get it to that point the better.

“We’ve been waiting for the DSG deficit management plans for a while now, and we’re tying a lot of our hopes to that.

“Having a DSG deficit of £100m is something we must not stop banging the drum about – we must ensure the statutory override is dealt with successfully.”

Councillor Frances Nicholson served as the county council’s cabinet member for education and families at the time when the DfE funding was originally secured.

In a statement read out on her behalf, she said: “The council has been put into a very difficult position thanks to egregious behaviour from the DfE.

“The DfE’s official insisted on their design and contractor, saying they knew best – and they failed. They have put some money in to rectify their mistakes, but it’s not enough.

“The council did the right thing to ensure the children were kept safe. What is absolutely outrageous is that the council is being asked to carry the can for the DfE.”

The executive voted to approve the additional funding, with Mr Revans due to write to the DfE to express the council’s concerns about the school’s delivery and the DSG override.