A primary and secondary school in Folkestone are proposing a merger to offer children in the town the chance to go to just one educational establishment from the age of four to 18.

The Folkestone Academy is considering joining together with Park Farm primary school from September 2009 - and if the plans go ahead this would create Kent’s first “all age” academy.

The proposal has come from the Folkestone Academy Trust and the governors of Park Farm primary school, who are also looking at creating new purpose built accommodation on the site of the former Channel School, in Park Farm Road.

They say the advantages of the merger would be to provide a seamless education for young people from the start of their schooling through to university, as the academy has links with higher education institutions in Kent. It would also mean ideas, expertise and teaching could be shared, the primary school children would have access to excellent specialist facilities and relationships between teachers and parents would be developed over a longer period of time.

Chair of governors at Park Farm Primary School Michael Pearce said: “The governors and staff of Park Farm aim to provide the very best education for its children. We now have an opportunity to build on the considerable achievement of the last decade, which has led to a position where each year around half our year six pupils transfer to grammar schools.

“We should like to reassure parents that we will continue to support all those that would like their children to be selected for a grammar school education. However nearly all of the remainder now choose to move on to senior school at the Folkestone Academy and in future this transition would be made easier as a result of the sharing of ethos, expertise and facilities offered by being part of the Academy.”

The chairman of the governors at the Folkestone Academy is businessman Roger De Haan. He said: “The Folkestone Academy was set up principally to serve a community where secondary education had been under-resourced for many years. I welcome wholeheartedly this opportunity to investigate extending similar opportunities to children throughout their time in school.”

Governors of both schools will now prepare an “Expression of Interest” submission to the Department for Children Schools and Families.

The Folkestone Academy opened in September 2007 and replaced the former Channel School. It is already over subscribed.