Plans to temporarily move Guernsey's Sixth Form to La Mare de Carteret High School

The States of Guernsey hope the Sixth Form will only need to be at La Mare de Carteret High School for a year. Credit: PA Images

Plans have been made to temporarily move Guernsey's Sixth Form to La Mare de Carteret High School for the 2025-26 academic year.

The decision to move the Sixth Form comes after the States of Guernsey withdrew from using R.G. Falla Limited as the chosen contractor for the Post-16 campus build at Les Ozouets, which could lead to delays in construction work there.

The States of Guernsey hope the Sixth Form will only need to be at La Mare de Carteret High School for a year.

The Sixth Form will be moved to La Mare de Carteret High School Credit: ITV News Channel

It says the school is considered the best option because it allows the transition of students from La Mare de Carteret High School to the site at Les Varendes to continue as planned in 2025.

It also supports the delivery of the re-organisation of 11-16 education into three schools from September 2025 as planned.

The States added: "The La Mare de Carteret High School site has been maintained and has sufficient classrooms and specialist spaces to accommodate the Sixth Form Centre temporarily."

Further detailed work is ongoing to finalise plans.

Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said: "While it remains incredibly disappointing that we have been forced into a situation where there will almost certainly be a delay to the full opening of the new Post-16 campus, the plan we are developing secures the transition from four 11-16 secondary schools to three 11-16 schools from September 2025 as planned.

"It also maintains the recently-changed primary school feeder model, which parents are now familiar with so they know which secondary school their child will move to after primary school.

"Moving the Sixth Form Centre to a temporary home at La Mare de Carteret High School is clearly something we would have rather avoided, but we believe at this stage is the best option to ensure momentum is maintained in other important parts of the re-organisation of Secondary and Post-16 education."

The planned Post-16 campus at Les Ozouets Credit: States of Guernsey

She added: "We considered whether it would be possible to transition students from La Mare de Carteret High to Les Varendes in September 2025 as planned, while retaining the Sixth Form Centre on the same site.

"While technically possible, this would require substantial reconfiguration of the site to make room for the additional students transitioning from La Mare. More than 60% of Sixth Form lessons are taught in the main school rather than the Sixth Form Centre, so there simply isn’t room to accommodate what would be approximately 1,300 students in total on the site as it is now.

"The community has made its feelings about such a large school very clear in recent years, which was another consideration of the Committee before determining that moving the Sixth Form Centre to a temporary home, for what we hope will be one year only, is currently the best option."

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