I've heard of Stanway teachers being told that they're moving to TLA - not asked. Hardly going to be getting an enthusiastic staff.
The process has been rushed because the original proposal (last year I think) of merging TLA and AB was thrown out by local parents.
Bear in mind also that SCL and AB are under threat of closure by the governments 'Schools challenge' of improving gcse results. The 3 schools into 1 thing sounds like a fiddle so that the average would be above the closure mark.
The only option that made any sense to me was the one that reshuffled the schools and catchments entirely, anything else is just sticking plasters, but it won't happen cos they've made it too expensive.
I'm quite curious to see where they're intending to send all the kids that will be living in Myland when they've built the gazillion houses they're planning to over the next decade or so. There's no answer to that in the proposals at all.
Oh, and according to our local councillor the University knew nothing about the academy on their land until the document was published recently.
Essexgel - if option 4 were to do ahead the schools couldn't be separate specialisms (and the specialist status is generally a bit of a red herring anyway)