I found this interesting exchange on the subject of forecasting how many school places are needed on the Facebook page of the "Hampton Wick parents against Avenue Centre private development" They are trying to get Richmond Council to use the site of the derelict Avenue Centre opposite for school expansion rather than cramming 50% extra children onto the current site. A parent wrote to Matthew Paul of LB Richmond Education Dept. querying various aspect so the development and has pasted the replies. I see Mr Paul says here that school place planning is an art not a science!
"Parent: Spectacularly bad forecasting by Richmond Council of the number of school places required and a very poor response as to why this is so. I cannot accept that there are too many variables for an accurate forecast and that you seem to have been surprised by the number of families moving into or having children in the new Sandy Lane development. Surely any developer will say that they anticipate less families to avoid paying the Council more money towards education? Furthermore with recent developments in Langdon Park, Tremarton Close, the development at the Langdown-Down hospital, the Shell garage redevelopment and now the Avenue Centre - will that not place even more pressure on school places? The plans seem to fulfill current needs for the next few years but how soon before even those places will be under pressure.
Matthew Paul: Whilst you are of course entitled to your opinion, school place planning is perhaps more difficult than you might perceive. We knew that there would indeed be some children in the recent housing developments who would need school places, but much greater factors (so far) for exacerbating demand for places at HWINS in such a short space of time have been: the increased birth rate (up 30% between 2002 and 2008), the economic downturn and the school?s well-deserved reputation for excellence. Of those factors, the one that has arguably played the biggest part in the last year or so is the state of the economy and its impact upon parents? ability (or not) to (a) consider private education for their child/ren and (b) to move to a larger property ? either within the local area or elsewhere ? as their family grows. Although we know how many children were born in the area four years before a Reception intake, we can never know for sure in advance of the intake the number of those children who have moved out of the area; how many have moved in since that time; and, of the total number of children living in the area at the time of application, how many might end up in private schools and/or might move out of the area. We can and do track the percentage of children who don?t end up needing local state-maintained primary school places, but sometimes that percentage can changes in an unforeseen way. Ultimately, even with excellent data and good intelligence, both at a borough-wide and more local level, re admission and socioeconomic patterns, school place planning can be more of an art than a science. Most of the time, I believe that we manage our school place planning responsibility well and in a timely fashion."