A Kent grammar school has announced plans to cut teaching jobs just months after being hit with a damning Ofsted rating it still strongly rejects.

Chatham and Clarendon (CCGS) in Ramsgate has opened a consultation about staff restructuring in a bid to slash up to £560,000 from its annual budget.

But school bosses insist the decision was not triggered by a heavily contested Ofsted inspection which saw it graded ‘inadequate’ in September last year.

The damning report – in which CCGS’s use of single-sex classes was branded “unlawful discrimination” – was published just weeks before the deadline to apply for secondary school plces in Kent.

And it appears to have had quite the impact on parents, with the number of first-choice applications at CCGS falling from 200 last year to 107 for this September’s intake.

As a result, the school expects fewer pupils to join Year 7 this year, which in turn will result in reduced funding.

But chair of trustees John Waker says the impact of this will not be felt for two years, adding that the financial pressures CCGS faces are little to do with the Ofsted judgement.“Sadly, like schools up and down the country, we are having to deliver on our educational aspirations while managing funding that isn’t keeping pace with our costs,” he said.

“Not only is the impact of a declining birth rate starting to be felt by secondaries across the country, but recent announcements about improving school staff pay, while much needed, are not fully funded.

“This issue is magnified at a school like ours, where we have lots of very experienced teachers who are at the top of their pay scales.

“That is why it is right to stress that our financial pressures are not linked to Ofsted. The indication was that we would need to go through some restructuring in the future even before the inspectors arrived.

“It is, however, likely that we will also have a smaller intake in September 2025 because of our Ofsted grading. While the financial impact of this will not be felt for another two years as school funding is lagged, it would be wrong for us not to at least start to prepare for this.”

The school has launched a consultation to restructure teaching and support staff, with the aim of reducing its annual budget by 6-7%.

How this is achieved has yet to be determined, as the initial stage involves conversations with staff.

Mr Waker said: “We have a fantastic team of staff at Chatham and Clarendon, and they should be applauded for all they do for our brilliant students. That makes conversations about restructures all the harder.

“Sadly, however, we are not alone in having to make decisions like this and, by acting now, we are protecting everything we want to achieve in the future.”

The school - previously rated ‘good’ by Ofsted - was founded in 2013 by the merger of the boys-only Chatham House Grammar School and girls-only Clarendon House Grammar School.

Boys and girls at the Chatham Street site are taught in single-sex classrooms in years seven to nine, together for all but the ‘core subjects’ for years 10 and 11, and in mixed classes in sixth form.

We are not alone in having to make decisions like this and, by acting now, we are protecting everything we want to achieve in the future…

But during a two-day visit last March, Ofsted concluded that this separation was detrimental to pupils’ education and had unfavourable social effects.

“While most pupils are happy at school, some pupils are unhappy with the opportunities they feel they miss out on due to the practices of separating pupils by sex,” continued the report.

“Some pupils reported to inspectors that they become anxious when they enter mixed classes in some lessons in the upper school.

“This degree of separation and unfavourable treatment also affects whom they socialise with outside of lessons.”

Ofsted said the practice amounted to “unlawful discrimination on the grounds of sex” under the Equality Act 2010.

Head teacher Debra Liddicoat hit back, remarking that Ofsted’s conclusions were “inconsistent, unfounded and show a lack of understanding”.

CCGS entered into a lengthy legal process to try to get the report amended to make it a “fair reflection” of what inspectors saw, but was unsuccessful in its efforts.

Despite the turmoil of last year, Mrs Liddicoat said this week that the “future is bright” for CCGS.

“If you simply look at the Ofsted judgement, then it is easy to look back at 2024 as being a difficult time for our school,” she said.

“However, the one-word conclusion inspectors came to, which we still disagree with, also makes it easy to forget that there was also a great deal for us to celebrate.

“In the summer we secured our best ever set of results at GCSE. The data shows that our students made greater progress last year than at any point in recent memory and our school has jumped up the league tables of Kent Schools.

“The feedback we have had from our students and parents has been incredibly positive, and we have seen our students thrive in all walks of life.

“All indicators are that we are in a strong position educationally, and that out future is very bright.”

As part of the school’s formal response to the inspection, it has prepared a Statement of Action that is currently being reviewed by the Department for Education.

Mrs Liddicoat added: “Given the disputes about the accuracy of the original report, we have used the production of this document to forensically consider how we can enhance already strong practice and improve areas where some additional focus would be beneficial.

“We are genuinely trying to make the best of a situation we don’t believe we should be in – and this is being recognised by others. The Statement of Action will be shared with our community as soon as we have been given the green light to do so.”