A Sittingbourne mum says she's gone as far as writing to the Prime Minister after her son passed the Kent test, but wasn't given a place at a grammar school.
Daniel Psenicnyj didn't get any of the four schools he'd applied for and has instead been offered a place at Oasis Academy on Sheppey which is rated inadequate. Hear from Daniel and his mum Anna who have been speaking to reporter Megan Carr.
More than 50 vehicles have been stopped and drivers spoken to during a weekend of action to target nuisance motorists in Kent.
Five of the vehicles were seized for being uninsured or untaxed, while two people were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drink or drugs.
A Medway landlord has hit out at the local authority after spending 10 years complaining about issues with traffic, only for nothing to be done.
John Walsh lives in Lordswood and says the road surface in Lambourn Way is poor, there's inconsiderate parking by parents and other drivers going too fast. He's been speaking to Local Democracy Reporter Robert Boddy.
Catch-up clinics are being run in Kent this Spring as you're urged to make sure your children have had all their vaccinations.
It's because of a worrying rise in the number of youngsters getting measles. We've been along to one of the clinics to speak to an immunisation nurse.
The KentOnline Podcast has been told our food security is being put at risk by Asian Hornets in Kent.
There's already been a confirmed sighting in the county this year in Ash, near Canterbury and we're being urged to look out for more.
And, plans for a new independent football regulator will be debated for the first time in Parliament.
The Football Governance Bill is being brought in following a fan-led review by Kent MP and former sports minister Tracey Crouch.
We're being urged to keep an eye out for an insect in Kent that could threaten our food security. Find out why catch up vaccine clinics are running across the county and the Kent supermarket hoping to help neurodiverse people with the weekly shop that first today are sitting born mum. So she's gone as far as writing to the Prime Minister after her son passed the Kent test but wasn't given a place at a grammar school. Daniel Persnitchney gave up going out with friends to study for the exam and didn't get any of the four schools he'd applied for. Instead he's been offered a place at Oasis Academy on Sheppy which is rated inadequate. Daniel has been speaking to reporter Megan Carr. When I started getting ready for the 11+ I was determined to get a good school. I really wanted to be smart, be with the small kids and stuff like that. I didn't play with people with my friends online, I just kept working hard until I reached my dream and took to get school and I literally didn't play outside of friends, didn't even go to the park with friends. I just stayed home, got ready for the 11+ and stuff like that. But then I just worked hard for it and I didn't get what school I wanted to get. And it's not like you've found your 11+ this year, you don't really really well, and why is it that you're doing the passing 11+ what do you hope to do in the future? Go to a good school, not be like bullies and stuff like that. Obviously to get into a good school I bet in the future you're hoping to go to university and things like that. What do you hope for when you're older? To be like a professional footballer, to go to a good university like my aunt, now she goes to Southampton University and I kind of want to go there as well. I want to follow the steps of my aunt because she went to the good school, Queen Elizabeth Grandma's school. She works really hard for her dream and I want to be like her basically, I want to reach my dreams as well. Of course, and obviously if you worked really hard you put down the four schools, you knew you were going to be able to get into Grandma but you've done two normal two-gram schools happy about those. But you didn't get any at the bottom of your list, did you? You ended up getting a racist academy, how did that make you feel? I was just in shock, I was crying, I was crying for a quick straight, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was just in shock, I couldn't believe it, I worked so hard, trying to reach my dream until I just got worse, the worst school. Oasis Academy has two campuses in Sheerness but has developed quite a bad reputation due to recent teacher strikes and poor off-stead reports. As I mentioned in March 2023, the school was rated inadequate for a second time, you may recall towards the end of last year the school was forced to close several times when dozens of staff stage strike action over fees for their safety is something we covered comprehensively in the Kent Online podcast. Daniel's family have turned down the place and are now appealing, his mum Anna says it's simply not fair. This child was really hard and I feel, you know, it's just very difficult and very painful for me. So like every single night now I'm going to sleep and praying to God like please, like can we win at least one appeal because it's very painful and I don't know, it just, when you as a mum like praying for the best for him and get the results worse, even the worst than you ever thought like I thought like okay maybe they're going to send us to, I don't know, Wesleyan's sitting born school, any sitting born school, we were like okay, it's fine. To Oasis is just kill me, honestly it killed me, like for one week I was just like constantly contacting someone, to be honest with you I contacted our local MP, I contacted even issues. So like I don't know why I did it, I did just, just because I felt like I need to do something. So I contacted lots of the lawyers, then I start to appeal, I messaged lots of the mum's who had this procedure last year, just because I didn't know what to do, I didn't expect, I wasn't prepared for this. I was 100% sure that he's going to go at least to the normal school, and I said like then okay, don't be upset, I said like local schools are still fine, I said like we could go, there is a grammar streams, you're a clever boy, he reads a lot, he reads a lot of the books, he's very interested in his history geography and overly to speak with him is very interested, he's like, he's 11 but he's more brighter than this age, he's like my little, I don't know, little friend. And yeah, so that's why I feel like KCC, they just did a big mistake, it's just not fair for him to do it. I mean I do understand there is like such a policies, but when you make this decision you have to look a little bit, I think deeper into the child, especially like when he works that hard, when he had all the good grades, he never had any issues at school, he never had any problems at school, he never been to the head teacher since he started. So yeah, obviously I want to kind of fight for my child because it's just unfair. We've been in touch today with the county council, they're the people in charge of allocating school places and they've sent us this statement. All applicants for secondary school are ranked according to the details they provide to us on their application form and the published over subscription criteria for each school they named. KCC will then work through their preferences and offer a place at the highest preference school that we can, according to the availability of places in the school where we are unable to offer one of their named preferences because the school is full, we're then legally required to allocate an alternative space which is usually the next nearest school to the child's home on National Off-A-Day. All parents have the right of appeal for any school they've been refused. They're also able to go on the waiting list for any school they named. The only exception to this is if a grammar school was named and the child was not eligible for grammar school under the Kent test. We will email all parents who have named a waiting list preference on Kent's reallocation day on Thursday, April 25th to let them know if we can offer a different school after then all parents are free to approach any other schools that they did not originally name for a place. It's online news. Other top stories today and a man involved in a raid on a brothel in Ramsgate has been sent to prison for seven and a half years. Pedro Lima and two others threatened two workers at the building on Abbot's Hill last November before stealing cash, iPhones, watches and jewellery, a 35-year-old from Edgway in London admitted robbery and possessing an imitation firearm. A maidsto man's been charged after a corrosive substance was thrown over four police officers. They were responding to reports of damage to property and night riders street on Sunday evening when they were attacked. It's believed they've not suffered any long-lasting or serious injuries. A 26-year-old who lives on the street is due in court. A huge cannabis farm has been uncovered after a fire at an industrial site near Ashford. More than 300 plants were discovered in a building in Bethersdon Road in Smardon where a blaze had been reported on Friday night. Police are now investigating those behind it and the cause of the fire. More than 50 vehicles have been stopped and drivers spoken to during a weekend of action to target nuisance motorist's incant. Five of the vehicles were seized for being uninsured or untaxed while two people were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drink or drugs. One has since been charged, hit police have shared footage of some of their stops. I saw you guys coming down, the issue I've got with you at the moment is your plate. That one's probably the right, I don't know about this one, a good view of it as it's... Yeah, so that was the one I think I spotted actually in fairness to your ones. I've put my blue lights on for you, but you've taken quite a consider amount of time to stop. Is there a reason for that? So this moment of time you're under arrest to drink drugs, you're not the same thing that may have a defensive dimension, we're in question for each of those who are caught. If you do say you may begin a little bit, it's okay, you're going to go in front of that? You want to back? Well, comes you driven down the path to go round us. Oh, I thought you guys were talking to the person in a car. Yeah, we were, we were dealing with a traffic matter, but you can't drive down and path. Oh, I don't know how long you guys were going to be there. Doesn't matter, does it? You can't drive down a footpath to go round us, have you got your license? Kent Online Reports A midway landlord has hit out at the local authority after spending 10 years complaining about issues with traffic, only for nothing to be done. Now, John Walsh lives in Lordswood and says the road surface in Lamborn Way is poor. That's inconsiderate parking by parents and others drive too fast. Well, he started writing to the council way back in 2014 and has offered a number of solutions, but says he's been ignored. John has been speaking to our local democracy reporter, Robert Boddy. For 10 years, most of the residents around here are getting increasingly fed up with the increasing amount of rat-run traffic, and that's speeding both residential and non-residential. They come down here at 100 mile an hour, go in there, or 100 mile an hour of exaggeration, but they do easily faulty and some do even more. You have HDVs, you have skip lorries, and because balance road is closed, everything that is distanced for them, deliveries, postal services, plasterboard, building materials all goes down here. Consistently, the council refused to open balance. Now, while I understand that, we've decided that we were going to get together a petition with three factors in it, and you must remember that we're doing this after nearly 10 years of complaining. We shouldn't have to complain for 10 years just to get a few humps. Initially, all we wanted was a few humps. To stop people, to slow people down before they got to no road to below 15 mile an hour, is we get a hell of a lot of Doppler effects inside all day long 24/7 into the small rowers, which is just ridiculous, nobody should have to put up with that. So, we got together a petition, which at a good response, it was nearly 80 to 100 people over about 15-16 households, and we even had people who had actually moved out who still kept in contact with people in the area who wanted to support us. Obviously, they couldn't sign a petition anymore, but they wrote testimonials. We put all that into the council. They took two years to get around because obviously they have to take petitions seriously. They took two years to do this, and then finally, even to the extent I had a meeting with them on the 7th of June last year, at 2 o'clock at Gamwolf, and they said, "Well, we're focusing on the road closure." I said, "Well, why don't you just put some humps in that with satisfies?" They said, "But you asked for a road closure." I said, "We asked for one of three things, a road closure of null road, humps or resurfacing. You've told us that we can't have resurfacing. We can't have bollards, and we can't have humps. So you're focusing on that." Well, it was only later on the 23rd of December when they finally deemed to 23rd of December last year after two years, that they said they deemed a reply to us after all this time. The 23rd of December, so a nice Christmas present, telling us they're not going to do anything. Why? Because they refused to take into account the 10 years of data that we had produced independently, showing the extent of the problems with videos and photographs and reasonable arguments, which no person in any street would regard as unreasonable, and they said there's not the accident stats, and we'd already said that this is not going any of due with accidents, stats. It's purely about environmental pollution, environmental noise and nuisance parking. Now, anyway, Council has told Kent online that a traffic survey carried out on at Mr Walsh's behalf actually cost taxpayers £10,000, automatic number plate recognition cameras we used to track how many cars were entering the residential area to bypass Daggett's road roundabout. They found only 34 vehicles at peak times in the morning, and 18 at the peak time in the afternoon were cutting through the estate. All other traffic either began or finished their journeys within the area, and so had reason to be there. "Cance online reports." It's emerged land in Canterbury that's owned by the University of Kent could be used to build more than 2,000 homes. The plot to the north of its campus in the city has been earmarked in the Council's draft local plan. That's a document that details where new housing could go. Now, this very detailed document suggests the development between the villages of Tyler Hill, Bleen and Roth Coleman and is currently out for consultation. You can see a map of where that development could go if you head to the website today. Elsewhere, CGI footage has been produced to show what Folkestone could eventually look like thanks to levelling up money. The Council's hoping to spend £20 million on the route from Folkestone's central railway station to Middleburg Square. Now ideas include improved access to public transport, a 20-mile-per-hour zone, and the current Boovary Square bus station relocated. And if you follow Kent Online on socials today, or head to the website, you can see what a new school planned for Maidstone could look like. The idea is to build it on the site of the current Invicta Army Barracks, which are due to close in 2019. It would cater for children from the age of 4 right through until they're 18, and could cost up to £60 million to build. Now, catch-up clinics are being run in Kent this spring as your urge to make sure your children have had all of their vaccines. Why? Well, it's because of a worrying rise in the number of youngsters getting measles. Youth centres, Scout Hutts and even a church have been used by immunisation nurses to give out the MMR jab. Fran Pemman is one of them. We do these catch-up clinics. We do one here every month, as well as other areas around Kent. People who say we go into school to do, obviously, the vaccinations. And sometimes, those children are poorly, so they're not at school, obviously, or they are on a school trip, or even if they're not being nervous, and a bit anxious about having a vaccine done, and in a school themselves without, maybe, a parent or in the comfort of their loved ones. So that's why we offer these clinics, so then it helps people come and be a bit more comfortable without people in a school environment, less noisy as well. And obviously give everyone the opportunity to have their vaccination if they weren't able to have it the first time. Brilliant. Yeah, I guess it's very important, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it's really important that these clinics, we obviously offer, you know, from Harper's Day to sort of Harper's Day, so anything that can fit in with people's times. We also do clinics in some holidays and Easter holidays and things like that. We also do provide home visits in case people, children who might find just coming out difficult or they come to clinic and they've found it a little bit still too bit traumatic to come. So we do offer these home visits just to make things more easier for the child and the parent as well. Now, if you head to the trending pages of Kent Online today, you can find out exactly where those catch-up clinics are being run and on which days. Kent Online News. Part of the M20 is going to be closed overnight, so Operation Brock can be put in place. The contraflow system is being deployed ahead of the Easter holidays when it's expected to be especially busy at the port of Dover. The motorway will be shut between junctions 9 and 8 co-spound and 7 to 9 London bound from 8 to 9 until 6 tomorrow morning. Next today in the Kent Online podcast has been told our food security is being put at risk by Asian hornets in Kent. There's already been a confirmed sighting in the county this year. It was found in a shed in Ash, near Canterbury. Now the insects prey on pollinators such as bees and butterflies which are essential for our fruit and vegetable crops. Sue Knights is from the Kent Bee Keepers Association and she's been speaking to Kate. Asian Hornet is an invasive species. It has arrived across the channel from France and is causing problems with regard to pollination and also to honey crops. So whilst this is being led by beekeepers is not actually a beekeeper issue, it is a country wide issue because ultimately pollinators are responsible for our food sources and without pollinators we will not have food sources. So where we will get our food from is another matter. In terms of the incursion at the moment, last year 72 nests were discovered and destroyed. We only know what we know so there may well have been more than 72 nests but we didn't know about them and so therefore this year we are concentrating on trying to find queens so that they can be destroyed and also hopefully not build new nests this year. If they do build new nests this year then our job will be to find them and eradicate them and that's all we can do at this moment in time. Are they a threat to humans? Not directly however there is obviously a health and safety issue. European Hornet nests can be a danger to humans. Some people suffer from anaphylaxis which basically means that they have an allergic reaction which could cause all sorts of other problems and if they have an underlying health issue, if they get stung then obviously that could then cause them additional problems. But it is more about the fact that nests will be wherever they are and that could be in a brown ball patch, it could be in a hedge row, it could be high up in trees, it could be anywhere and if they breed at the rate that they have done in France we could end up with lots and lots and lots of nests in places like play parks that sort of thing and of course it only takes the kitty to kick a football into a brown ball patch and all of a sudden they've got a reaction of a defence mechanism of the hornets coming out which will probably result in more than one sting which is obviously more dangerous. Asian hornets as I explained are apex predators and that means that they will predate on any insect. Now the population of our pollinators has over the years justically reduced. The number of pollinators that we now see in our countryside have reduced drastically and the pollinators are responsible for pollinating not only flowers but also our fruit and trees and without the pollination process then obviously there will be no fruit, there will be no vegetables and there will be less seeds produced by our flowers so over time this will gradually reduce which will mean that there will obviously be less food available to us as human beings. We're being urged to report any further sightings throughout the spring. Sensory support boxes are being made available at a Kent supermarket to try and make the weekly shop less challenging for neuro diverse people. According to the National Autistic Society a trip to the supermarket can be the most daunting thing for those with ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia or Tourette syndrome. Tesco in Seven Oaks has been given the boxes which include cards to help children explain their feelings along with fidget toys and a stress ball and thousands of free tickets to some of Kent's top attractions are being made available through a huge ballot. It's the brainchild of Visit Kent to get us all appreciating what's on the doorstep. More than 80 businesses have got involved with over 4,000 tickets available the weekend will run over the 20th and 21st of April. Ken's online sports football first and plans for a new independent regulator will be debated for the first time in Parliament today. The football governance bill is being brought in following a fan led review by Kent MP and former sports minister Tracy Crouch. It's aiming to introduce a stronger testing of owners and directors and give supporters a big essay in the running of their club. Skye's Carve Sollicle says the regulator will have three main objectives. The first one is to improve financial sustainability of clubs secondly to ensure financial resilience across football leagues and thirdly to safeguard the heritage of English football. Breakaway competitions like the European Super League will be blocked under the new laws. In tennis, Kent's Emma Rajikanu has withdrawn from this week's Miami Open because of a back injury. She was due to play China's CU Wong in the first round tomorrow. The 21-year-old from Alpington was hoping to improve on her third round exit at the Indian Wells tournament last week. Well, that's all from us for today. Thanks ever so much for listening. Don't forget you can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and threads. Plus you can get details on the top stories. Direct your email each morning via the briefing to sign up just head to kentonline.co.uk news you can trust. This is the Kent Online Podcast. [MUSIC PLAYING]
