Haberdashers' Adams grammar school reveals £2m plan to bring extra pupil places

Haberdashers’ Adams in Newport will have its biggest expansion of pupil numbers in the school’s history – and children from across Telford will be made a priority.

Following the recent announcement that the government will invest £50 million in grammar schools, Haberdashers’ Adams will apply for funding to build a new teaching block to accommodate an additional 30 pupils in Year 7 from September 2020 onwards.

The school has already begun a consultation on the plans to extend its premises and increase the number of pupil places each year by 25 per cent.

In September 2020, the number of pupils taken into the school’s first year will increase by 30.

This will continue every year for five years.

Priority was previously given to boys applying from the Newport area, but this will now be extended to the whole of the Telford & Wrekin borough.

Headmaster Gary Hickey said the move would help increase social mobility in the town.

“Four years ago when I became the head we introduced the admissions area to Newport,” he said.

“I was concious that a school should serve its community and Adams had moved away from that – we were bussing in literally hundreds of pupils from quite a long way away, and I felt that Adams had become divorced from its local community.

“We had 100 places every year in September, and we were having six or seven pupils from Newport. We just didn’t think that was fair.

"So we’re delighted that after the outreach work we’re now into 30 from the Newport schools. Because of the success of that, we want to extend that attendance area to include all of Telford. We’re not going to work in wards or divisions, we’ll expand to all of Telford.”