Wow this is a huge projected sibling intake

[listsandbudgets]

Has anyone come across this before?

My friend has just bought a house (at huge expense) and moved into the catchment area of a school she really wants her DS to go to in September 2015. She went to visit today and has just rung me up in a panic saying that the head teacher has warned her that the projected sibling intake for September 2015 is 26 and that's before taking into account any children starting reception in September. The school only has 30 children per year group so friend now convinced she won't get her son in. I'm feeling rather sorry for her right now :(

The year my eldest went to school, 2010, the second choice school we picked had 32 siblings for a 30 place entry. So no one else was offered a place
Luckily we got into our 1st choice but I know that last year when my son started there was 36 places offered instead of 30 and a mixed yrR/1 class was created. I have no idea why 6 extra children were given a place though.

Tiggy that's not really true. free Schools as they are aren't the right options for everyone yet everyone needs an educations- some have caused problems for SEN admissions, for example.

Gove and Toby Young loathe the system in Wales where I live, but I know as someone who moved from England to Wales and used schools in both that I am FAR happier with my children's education here, yet we have no free schools. Instead my bright ds2 has a place at a great comp instead of the skanky local comp we were close to before (which I had attended myself and vowed no child of mine ever would), and wants to study robotics at Uni; my bright ASD DS1 has a place at a great Base which didn't even exist back home and wants to study criminology; my not academic ds3 who has asd is in a lovely, warm primary base and has amde far better progress than we ever imagines, when he'd have been left in MS without much help back home. My bright, incredibly shy, HFA 6 year old is thriving in a good quality Church MS here when he'd have been in a fairly rough local primary back home.

Free schools are NOT the only option, they can be socially divisive (as Sweden is finding), and damaging to local schools- we had a problem here for a while where all the posh parents used one school, meaning the other was left to cope with lower income kids across the board, a fab new Head has now turned that around but a Free School could feasibly cause similar issues. And I am really against that sort of separation, as someone from a poor background who was dismissed as unable at school and made to do very rubbish subjects on the basis of council house kids will just get knocked up in a year or so anyway / council house kids are better off typing than learning physics / you'll only go and work in a factory anyway so why worry? (all said to me- in fact I had a good career in the charity sector, have a degree and will soon have my MA).

As for funding I am very willing to pay an extra few pence on income tax to get good educational and NHS provision. I know few agree with me, but that's certainly my take on it.

And of course I would support LEAs being able to open new schools. Or as ours is doing, merge existing ones to make better, larger facilities.

Peachy in England LEAs are no longer allowed to open new schools - that power has been removed from them. They can only expand existing ones. So any new school HAS to be a free school.

It happened to us: ds1 went to the school nursery, made friends and was settled. As we lived on the same road as the school, within eyesight from our front garden, we were devastated to find out that he didn't get a place in reception due to the sibling rule.

We had to settle for a church school (we're atheists) and ds had to get to know everyone. Not the happiest time for us and I understand how your friend feels.

The situation seems worst in London - I can not imagine what a nightmare it is. Its is widespread however - in our area we run on sibling priority then distance so you have no way of predicting what chances you have...total nightmare for parents as every one knows that available places are like gold dust at popular schools. People cheat and lie about address. People rent and then move. People get one child and move to a cheaper area. You name it, it goes on. Stupid that LEAs can not just build some new schools - its so so sad that outdoor space is gobbled up with new classrooms etc

Wow, things you learn, I didn't realise "bulge class" was such a technical term.

Er... anyone have stats about the size of the English national secondary intake for autumn 2015?

round here all the bulge classes are Polish
but the bigger issue is that southern Hampshire is uber desirable on a national economic level
so developers are currently building 10,000 new homes
but there are only 1500 new school places allowed to be built by the LEA .... problem brewing

FWIW IMHO the Polish kids are the best thinge to have happened to local schools in 30 years

From memory, 2013 was the lowest intake, and it is steadily increasing, though nothing compared to current primary intakes, of course.

We've still got fixed catchments here (Hampshire), but they change occasionally, they publish the distance to the last household getting an offer the previous year, which for our school is usually within catchment. Never heard of bulge classes happening in the local schools though, there is usually space at the others in our town.

WhoKnows
Southampton, Basingstoke, Portsmouth

I wouldn't know about them, we're out in the sticks.

the waves are flowing outwards are you upper test valley perchance

Titchy, that's not true, I am a governor of a new LA school and locally there is also a secondary LA school opening up the road. They are all federations.

No, Surrey borders.

Boffinmum
Here is the list of New LEA school propsals for the whole of England

Lincolnshire North Hykeham Primary 210 places
East Devon Cranbrook Primary 420 places
East Devon Cranbrook Secondary 1,000 places
Cambridgeshire Bearscroft Farm Primary 330 places

as per
[[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-school-proposals]}
cute, but not where the shortages are (London and the south east)

Ds1's headteacher mentioned last summer that there were 50 siblings in catchment for Sept 14 intake. The pan is 30! Am just hoping we are close enough for ds2 to get in (should hear soon).

Thx, DD got into "very desirable" school for Sept 2013; everyone got in. but rumours are that it was very impossible to get into for Sept 2014 without a sibling. So I wondered what might happen to DS due to start secondary in 2015.

I have one born in 2008, too :).

Just got school newsletter this morning & sure enough HT is congratulating self on how over-sub'd his school is. Hymph.

TalkinPeace

Cambridgeshire has already opened up Queen Ediths and Trumpington Meadows, and has plans for Clay Farm on its books. So that's about 1800 LA places in total at primary level. There is also going to be a secondary school, so about 1000 places there as well.