By Hayley Robinson

Only three people attended a meeting to find out about a primary school's plans to become an academy.

Two parents and Swale Central county councillor Mike Whiting attended the event at Regis Manor Community Primary School on Monday, March 28.

The school has applied to Education Secretary Michael Gove for an academy order to become part of Westlands Academies Trust and hopes to convert by June 1.

The move will see the school sharing resources and facilities with the Westlands School and the Westlands Primary School, formerly Woodgrove Primary, which are part of the trust.

The move would also give it more power over admissions, pay, what it teaches and the power to change the length of the school day and term times.

An extra £140,000 in funding could also be released.

Head teacher John Day and Westlands head Jon Whitcombe were at the meeting, which was meant to be an opportunity for the parents of children at the school and the wider community to ask questions about the proposal.

Mr Whitcombe said: "It was hard to generate a lot of discussion with just three people in the room, but what I would hope is this is symptomatic of parents seeing this move in the interest of the school and having confidence that it will end up improving the quality of the children's experience.

"In my experience, people turn up to meetings if they are fiercely opposed to something."

The conversion has been agreed to in principle by Mr Gove.

If it goes ahead, the school will become the town's fifth new-style academy.

The Westlands School and Westlands Primary School became academies in September and Fulston Manor and Highsted Grammar School became academies in October.