New plans for secondary education in Guernsey put forward

Guernsey's Education Committee has set out its initial proposals for a new model of secondary education.

The Committee for Education, Sport & Culture is proposing three 11-16 schools, with a separate post-16 campus including a sixth form.

St Sampson's and Les Beaucamps schools will both feature in the plans, but the committee wants to assess whether the third of the schools will be at Les Varendes or La Mare de Carteret.

The sixth-form centre would be co-located on the same site as The Guernsey Institute, though the two would not be fully integrated.

The proposals have been drawn up following a period of consultation and surveys with staff and students over the past six months, but the committee's president says they also take into account the island's economic situation and the need for recovery.

Consultation will take place with staff at secondary schools and The Guernsey Institute ahead of the policy letter being produced in May.

The future of secondary education in Guernsey was a key issue in the 2020 general election, which saw the then president of the Education, Sport & Culture Committee, Matt Fallaize, lose his seat in the States.

The Committee has faced calls from politicians to follow through with a requête passed by the previous States in March 2020, calling for plans for a two-school model to be fully assessed.

Deputy Dudley Owen says 'relevant' work from earlier committees will be used to set the direction of the new policy, along with workshops and surveys carried out in the autumn of 2020.