When will new Kettering secondary school open?

A minister has said the Government is working to agree an opening date for a new Kettering school ‘as soon as possible’.

Hanwood Park Free School will be the town’s first new secondary school in a generation, with original hopes it could open in 2024 when plans were first announced in 2019.

But the date for its first cohort of pupils hasn’t been confirmed and, on Monday (April 29) in the House of Commons, Kettering MP Philip Hollobone (Con) asked schools minister Damian Hinds (Con) when the Government expected it to open.

Mr Hinds replied: “We are working with his council and sponsoring trust to agree a provisional opening date for Hanwood Park Free School as soon as possible.”

The free school plan was first proposed by Kettering’s Southfield School, which later became part of the Orbis Education Trust, and was originally going to be a boys-only setting.

But last year the Department for Education (DfE) reversed the original plan and said it would be mixed-sex, after more than three-quarters of those who took part in a fresh consultation backed calls for it to be co-educational instead, in what was hailed as a great result for the community.

Mr Hollobone said it ‘never made sense’ for the school to be boys-only because it meant all girls who are aged 11 or over living at the Hanwood Park development would have had to travel elsewhere for education.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday the Conservative asked for Mr Hinds to facilitate a meeting in Kettering with the DfE’s regional director for the East Midlands, himself, the local educational authority, the Orbis academy trust and the Hanwood Park developers so the school build is co-ordinated as best as possible, something Mr Hinds agreed he would convene.

Mr Hollbone said: “The new Hanwood Park Free School is a key part of the future educational infrastructure in Kettering and will be located at the heart of the Hanwood Park development, which, with 5,500 houses, is one of the largest housing developments in the whole country.”