A CHANGE in the status of three West Somerset schools could unlock funding for major improvements to their facilities.

The federated schools of Danesfield Middle and St Peter's First in Williton and Old Cleeve First are on course to become a multi-academy trust, which will be known as the Quantock Academy.

And although it will largely be business as usual for pupils and staff at the three schools, the move to being funded by central Government instead of Somerset County Council, the local education authority, is expected to bring huge benefits.

Executive headteacher Ian Bradbury said that in addition to having more control of its existing resources, the move would allow the new academy to bid for substantial grant aid from the Government to carry out a major revamp of Old Cleeve First.

In addition to the main Victorian building which dates from the 1880s, facilities for the 127 pupils, nursery youngsters and staff at the school are also located in three 'temporary' wooden huts.

And the severe weather conditions over the past week have demonstrated the urgent need for improvements, with the roof of one of the huts blowing off, resulting in year two children having an extra day's holiday on Monday.

"These huts have been a feature of the school for years and should have been replaced long ago," said Mr Bradbury.

"We want to get rid of them and replace them with something fit for the 21st century.

"We've lost parts of the roofs three times in the last 12 months and we've also had flooding in the foyer of the main building.

"Becoming an academy will give us the financial flexibility we need to drastically improve the facilities."

The plans would also include the creation of a new kitchen to allow lunches to be cooked on the premises, as well as the development of new play space.

Although the likely cost of the improvements is being kept under wraps at the moment, Mr Bradbury said it would represent a major investment.

"We would basically be reconfiguring the inside of the school so we would have a lovely Victorian building on the outside with state-of-the art facilities inside.

"It will revolutionise the educational opportunities for pupils at Old Cleeve.

"We will not be making it bigger or trying to squeeze in more pupils - we will just be making it totally fit for purpose."

Consultations with parents, staff and trade unions on the switch to academy status have been underway since the beginning of the autumn term, with the governors of the existing Quantock Federation voting in favour of it a year ago.

It was expected to take effect from January 1 but has been delayed by a month due to land transfer issues.

"Having three church schools going into one trust has proved slightly more complicated than we thought but it should be all systems go from February 1," said Mr Bradbury.

"We haven't gone down this route for financial reasons but because it will give us so much more flexibility to use our resources as we want.

"At the moment some of our funding is ring fenced by the local education authority but this will no longer be the case.

"And being an academy will also give us greater control over admissions."

Mr Bradbury said that over the last three years Old Cleeve and more recently St Peter's had been over-subscribed.

A previous successful appeal to the county council had resulted in limits on class sizes at Old Cleeve rising from 19 pupils to 25.

Mr Bradbury said the new status would allow the schools more flexibility on admissions.

But he said there were no plans to raise the age range of pupils at Danesfield - an earlier proposal to open a free school on the campus catering for teenagers from 13 to 16 was shelved just over two years ago.

However, Mr Bradbury said the federated schools that will make up the new academy already worked very closely with the West Somerset College in Minehead and Knights Templar First School in Watchet.

"We will continue to develop these links," he said.

"This is a very exciting time for us and the change to an academy will bring tremendous opportunities, in particular to develop Old Cleeve."

Academies - publicly funded independent schools - were introduced by the Labour Government in 2000 but the number of schools adopting the status increased dramatically following the introduction of new legislation in 2010.

In December last year there were a total of 3,522 operating across England, none of which have to follow the National Curriculum and can set their own term times.

Minehead Middle became the first school in West Somerset to become an academy in 2011, followed by the West Somerset College.