Letter from Braunton Academy

We wanted to take this opportunity to write to families of the Braunton Learning Cooperative
Trust to update you on the Academy’s admissions for September 2022 and beyond. Braunton
Academy is very proud to be part of the Braunton Cooperative Learning Trust, one of the
Academy’s core values is community and we are very aware of our role in providing high
quality education for the children that access their primary school education in this partnership.
Since taking on the role of Principal of the Academy in September, Mrs Bowler has been
privileged to start working alongside her fellow headteachers at the five feeder primary schools
and has already engaged in a number of activities to develop closer curriculum and transition
links to benefit the students across both educational phases. We know that this continued
partnership has the potential to provide something very special in supporting the education of
young people in the Braunton community.
Through this work with the Braunton Learning Cooperative Trust, it has become clear that this
relationship could potentially be compromised in the future due to the Academy not having
the physical space or the required teaching capacity to accept all the students from the
Partnership primary schools. We are aware this has been a matter of great concern for many
parents, governors and staff as our community wants to continue working closely together and
providing high quality educational experiences across both phases for all of our students.
The governors and staff at Braunton Academy are fully committed to supporting our community
and we have been working with Devon County Council to find a solution that allows us to
accept the additional 30 Year 6 students currently in our feeder schools that would not have
been allocated places this year. We are pleased to report that this has been achieved and
we will be accepting 180 students rather than 150 into Year 7 in September 2022.
Although this has solved the situation for September 2022, it has not resolved this issue for the
following four years where numbers in the Braunton Partnership primary schools are again
substantially higher than the capacity of the Academy. The Academy wants to find a solution
to support our community, but we would need significant investment to build an additional
teaching area on the current site to be able to accommodate any further increase. Due to
this we are again engaging in discussions with Devon County Council and over the next 6
months we will work together to identify possible areas of the current site that can be extended.
At this early stage, we are unable to fully commit to increasing our numbers further as there is
considerable work that needs to take place to ensure that any planned increase is financially
viable and will not negatively impact on the quality of the provision we provide to students
currently at the Academy. However, we are committed to doing everything we can to support
a temporary expansion over the next couple of years.

We will continue to update parents and colleagues within the Braunton Partnership on the
progress of this work as we know you are all heavily invested in the Academy finding a workable
solution.

Yours faithfully,
Mrs F Bowler and Mr M Juby
Principal         and Chair of Governors