Stuart Williams, principal of Catmose College in Oakham, has joined forces with Uppingham Community College principal Jan Turner to ask Rutland County Council to look again at its plans for a new sixthform college.

The council wants to replace The Rutland College with Rutland County College at its Oakham site. It would be administered by Casterton Business and Enterprise College and eventually move to a new building in Oakham.

Originally, all three schools were involved in the plans but Catmose and Uppingham withdrew from talks when the county council decided to pursue a sixthform college administered by Casterton. It said this was because of Government advice.

The council has now released a letter it received earlier this month from the Goverment Office for the East Midlands clarifying what advice the Department for Children, Schools and Families has given.

Mr Williams and Mrs Turner say the letter backs their stance that all three schould be involved.

Coun Heather Wells (Con), portfolio holder for children and young people's services, said the council was following the letter's advice and proposing to set up a trust.

However when the Rutland Times asked the council why all three schools were not involved, as the government letter says would be possible, it said it would address questions raised in the consultation in a report to a council meeting on March 8.

Mr Williams said: "Both our-selves and Uppingham continue to support proposals where all three schools would work together and we want to find a way to get back around the table.

"There is nothing to say we can't still pursue that option and while it might be hard, sometimes the best things in life are hard."

Mrs Turner added: "There is also a clear statement that other models should and could be explored. This should include the alternative proposal for post-16 provision supported by a federal structure which involves the equal participation and commitment of all three colleges."

The council has a statutory responsibility to ensure pupils have access to post-16 education after April when the Learning and Skills Council disbands.

If the proposals don't go ahead, the county council says it would have to make sure pupils had access to opportunities outside Rutland.

The council is set to make a decision at its meeting on March 8.

The letter from the Government Office of the East Midlands to Carol Chambers, Rutland County Council director of children and young people's services

I know that these proposals have been the result of very careful thought about how to ensure that young people in Rutland have a good choice of opportunities post 16 in the particular circumstances of the area, and are currently the subject of a properly framed consultation with parents, young people and other local stakeholders. It is, of course, not for government to intervene in any way in that consultation or to give you legal advice, for which you should rely on your own legal advisers.

Recognising that these matters will be a matter for local decision at the conclusion of the consultation, I am aware that the LA's proposals have been affected by national policy and legal constraints which have closed off some possible options. I thought it might be helpful just to confirm those points which have over the past months been the subject of a number of discussions between yourselves and different experts within DCSF.

Two points are particularly material I think. First, national policy and legislation rule out the creation of a new stand alone 16 to 19 school or centre (the 2009 ASCL Act, section 126 refers). Moreover the view at national level, supported by the Sixth Form Colleges Forum, is that a sixth form college with the number of learners it is realistic to envisage in Rutland post 16 would not be viable.

The Department's view is that to represent value for money an individual school sixth form would need to have a minimum of 200 students. Turning to the options for a formally constituted, legal collaboration between existing schools, it would in principle be possible for the 3 secondary schools in parallel to follow the statutory process to increase their age range to 18 and agree for each of their post-16 students to be educated in a shared sixthform facility. Such an arrangement would need to be legally underpinned by strong shared governance arrangements and binding agreements with respect to recurrent funding, capital improvements and curriculum provision, which could be facilitated through a shared trust or federation. To achieve a situation where there is a single admissions authority for the collaboration would, in our view, require a federation which resulted in a single governing body across the three school sites, with each school maintaining its own school admissions policy.

Finally I know that you received advice from my expert colleagues in London on the framing of the statutory notice and won't go back over that ground.

I hope it is helpful to record these points. I am copying this letter to Caroline Kerr and Brian Teahan at DCSF headquarters, and to Marcie Taylor, Peter Holmes and Nick Rashley here.

Ms Haf Merrifield,
Director for Children and Learners,
GOEM