Westminster Report

BY the Rt Hon Mark Francois MP, Shadow Armed Forces Minister and Member of Parliament for Rayleigh and Wickford.
My campaign to establish the Rochford District’s first ever Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) school was launched back in July 2023, at Education Questions in the House of Commons. Whilst the Education Secretary and, in fact, the entire Government, may have changed since then, my determination to make this dream become a reality has not. Construction is proceeding apace, which means that the new facility, to be known as the Wolsey Park School, should open its doors to its first SEND pupils, next spring.
After over 30 meetings/briefings/visits related to the project, I managed to identify a site, on the Wolsey Park development at Rawreth and I then proceeded to secure funding for the project, including from the Department for Education (DfE) and Essex County Council (ECC), plus from developer’s Section 106 agreements, to allow the new school to be built.
The new school received 95% support in a local consultation exercise and, once planning permission had been obtained, construction began in the spring of 2026. The new school will be run by the Zenith Educational Trust, whose Chief Executive is Andy Hodgkinson, a previously highly popular Headteacher at Sweyne Park School, in Rayleigh. Zenith run a number of schools in South Essex, including the highly successful Castledon School and College SEND school, in Wickford, so they already have a strong track-record, in this field.
Wolsey Park will cater for 150 pupils in Early Years and Key Stages 1 & 2 (Primary). It will be supplemented by another 100 plus places at a new annexe, on the old Chetwood Primary School site, in South Woodham Ferrers, which will cater for Key Stages 3 & 4 (Secondary pupils) and which should follow about a year later, in 2028.
I describe this project as a “Labour of Love” because of my determination to see it succeed. I previously have had parents correspond with me and visit me at my regular constituency surgeries, who felt that they had nowhere else to go, that they had come to the end of the line in trying to help secure the best education for their children and who were, frankly, very frustrated with the obstacles that were preventing this.
In multiple cases, the parents had fought, sometimes for up to two years, to secure an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) for their SEND child/children, only to be told that all of the SEND schools in South Essex were already full up. I noticed that demand for SEND places was increasing so, I thought to myself, the best way to try to help alleviate the situation, was to increase supply, by creating a brand-new SEND school – and so my campaign began.
Since its inception, this project has come on leaps and bounds, with excellent progress having been made on actually building the school itself. I have regularly visited the site over the past few months and I am delighted with just how quickly Kier Construction have been able to develop the school.
The pace at which this is all coming together is a real testament to all those involved – who are as eager as me to see this school become a real success story. As mentioned, between the two sites, there will be provision for some 250 SEND children to be educated in state-of-the-art education settings. Whilst I appreciate that this will not entirely fix the current SEND placement shortage in the Rochford area, I do hope that it will still substantially improve the situation – hence why I’m determined to see this vital project through, to fruition.
Since first announcing this campaign, I have had many parents ask me how they may go about applying for school places. As Wolsey Park is a SEND school, applications will be via ECC, as the Local Education Authority and should commence later this year.
In the meantime, I wish Kier Construction Godspeed in completing the build-out on time, so that Rochford District’s first ever SEND school can start educating local SEND pupils, from next spring onwards.
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