Primary-school places shortfall: what's happening where you live?

My grandchildren go to an excellent small rural school-about 80 pupils aged between 3 and 11.There are 4 classes.The school is full and has a waiting list for years 1 and 2 but there are spaces in nearby small town schools.I havent heard of any problems for September.I hope it will be ok as my dd lives outside the county.Dgs1 is in yr1 and dgs2 is in Nursery hoping to start yrR in September.

Rural Northamptonshire here. Very real prospect of dd2 starting school in September as only girl in class of 3 (max class size 15) very lean year across the district apparently. For the following year I already know of 12 children so a very real chance of being oversubscribed!!

We're in Southwark, on the Lewisham boundary. We are not in the catchment for any of our 6 nearest schools and all are oversubscribed. The area has limped by with rotating bulge classes which then lead to sibling only intakes in subsequent years. We will be applying for 2015 and there are two potential free schools in the offing by then. I'm not keen on the idea but there is no other option now LEAs can't open schools themselves. We can't afford private so are desperately hoping to avoid having to get our child to a failing school at the other end of the borough every day.

I am in West London. No green area for sports or PE here either. Though they sometimes use a big park that is about 500 m away.

I cannot imagine how daunting a 4 form entry school would look like to a little child.

It's not a problem if done well. I went to a 5 form entry primary school.

When dd started in Reception that was a January start and she was able to do so because another reception class had been created. So two receptions. This year there is three. All pupils from above Reception have now been barred from the fenced off play area attached to the Reception classrooms. Obviously with so many more reception pupils they now need it to themselves. The nursery has also been divided and a classroom created there. Not sure what other measures have been taken other than that.

A free school with capacity for 60 children is opening near us. Primary is not so bad, but I dread secondary

I'd support any joined up effort to make parents' voices heard nationally.

Sw, rural village school. with seven classes. This year they took in two reception classes for the first time as catchment boundaries changed to incorporate new housing estate on edge of nearest town. So the school will double in size in the next few years and portakabins will be put on playing fields to accommodate.

We had two new secondary schools open last year under the 'Building Schools for the Future' scheme. The capacity of the schools was based on the lowest birth year for 12 years, so they will become hideously cramped in a few years

Mumsnet have raised the issue- but looking forward what are we mums going to do about it? Are there already national level petitions in place? Will mumsnet try and escalate the matter? I'd be happy to volunteer my time to help out on this matter- but not sure what is already in place...?

I think a petition to halt new building until school places are sorted out may turn a few heads!

i am horrified by your description bryte!

Is that really what we are fighting to get a place for? A 4 weekly PE rota?! That is sad, and shocking. Here in London we don't even have big fields so it's no suprise that our kids are not getting enough exercise.

:-(

Whne building new houses and considering school capacity, I wonder how they work out how many school children will occupy a new development. I suspect they take an average from an established area and apply that to the new development, conveniently forgetting that new developments tend to attract more families with school aged children.

North Croydon here. Many of our primaries have a bulge class now. At our particular one, we chucked the 2 Year 6 classes out into huts on the school field to make way for bulge classes which clearly aren't temporary. As we've now chucked the schoolkeeper out of his house and are developing a larger nursery unit which, I believe will be 104 places(!).

This is appalling, proper education should be given to all children no matter which faith, colour, origins they are.

I live in a large town in East Anglia. Several schools are being considered for expansion. DDs' school is already one of the biggest in the county so won't be expanded. The catchment area has shrunk over the past few years and if we were applying from our house now, for a school place, we would not get in. It is our named catchment school. A 3 form entry primary school is bad enough (as my children attend). Children already have 2 tiered lunch. y5 and Y6 eat lunch outside all year round. PE is done on a rota with art and RE. They have 2 of those subjects for 4 weeks, then change. So, they go 4 weeks without having PE. The playground is crowded, although luckily they have big fields and KS1 and KS2 have a separate playground.

I cannot imagine how daunting a 4 form entry school would look like to a little child.

We are in Essex and our local school is over subscribed every year. Living well within the catchment area will not guarantee you a place.

The reception places available each year are 120. Last September 90 of those places were taken up by siblings of children already at the school. My friend's child was first on the waiting list when the places were allocated but didn't get a place until January when a child moved out of the area.

We know of one family who own a house on the outer reaches of the catchment area but decided to rent it out and rent another house for themselves to live in closer to the school. There are also a few children who "live" in their Grandparent's house.

The school is very very cramped and bursting at the seams. It's run with military precision though.

Rural Leicestershire here,local primary full,as are all the other village schools.There are 15 Reception places a year and last year 17 children were turned away.When DD1 started there in 2007,only 3 or so children were out of catchment,the next year the school was classed as Outstanding and since then more and more children from the nearby towns are applying.

We are heading for a problem with secondary schools as the local town decided,despite a huge influx of Poles to the town and a bulge in the birth rate,to close one of the two secondaries.None of the children due to leave our primary this year have got a place there and rather than going to the sink school in another town,a lot are going private.We have to chose DD1's secondary this year and are getting worried.I'm another person who wonders why,with the increase in the birth rate and immmigration,did no one think that there might be a need for more school spaces?

There's the two extremes in Liverpool.

The oversubscribed schools are massively oversubscribed, the catchment for the two form entry nearest us was 450m last year.
Then there are lots of schools in the centre/North of the city that struggle to fill 50% of places even with the children that don't get any of their preferences.

The city are consulting about adding an extra priority before distance based on if a child has a parent employed at the school. I forsee applications for lunch supervisions going through the roof in certain areas.

One new class last September and two more from this September, which means the SENCO now has no classroom or office and there's no ICT suite (trolley system to be used) and the breakfast/afterschool club has no home.

There are no "corners" left to take small groups to as they are all in use as someone's office or by the SENCO. The SLT office is a converted cupboard with no windows, I'd be amazed if it meets H&S and/or fire regs.

Phonics groups are done in the staff room and in each of the four corners of the hall (at the same time)

Reception and YR1 are still full and not able to accommodate all applications and this is only a "satisfactory" school.

I have just moved to a small city and couldn't get a place for my yr 1 child in any of the local primaries. We have ended up in a catholic primary which is a lovely school but not necessarily what I would have chosen.

My younger son is due to start reception in September and his class is undersubscribed.

oh god, why is it when I gave birth in 2009 and we had shortages of midwives, overstretched maternity services etc did no one think "hang on, all these children will be needing school places, perhaps we should spend the next 5 years sorting that?" rather than leaving it to a year before?

Our area is pretty bad, we're hoping DS gets in one of the two schools walking distance from our house, but might have to accept we find hte money for prep and be poor from then onwards

Oh and agree with everyone saying, what about secondaries?

I'm a governor in a small commuter town in the SE. Our LEA has spent years refusing to allow my son's primary to expand from 1.5 class to two form entry, claiming 'there are excess primary places' here. They don't seem to have noticed all the families who move here precisely because there are good schools... last year they had to add bulge classes to two local primaries, but still refusing to expand ours (because in the long term they want to chuck us off our site and give the ground to the secondary next door). So we are stuck with a 45 intake, while extra places go to the Catholic primary, which is obviously appealing to only part of the population!

Oh, and nobody from the council seems to be thinking about the secondaries.