Hi - I've been running a campaign in Wokingham for six months now to try and get a Free Secondary School or make the council provide an academy by 2016, as the situation is dire and few to parents with children in Y4 or below seem to be aware of how difficult it will be to get into a school of choice rather than one they have no say in - me included.
In Wokingham s/s school places have almost run out, with parents only able to get into a catchment school if they live almost on the doorstep, the furthest place offered for the popular St Crispin's was just 2.4 miles.
Parents living in the southern parishes, that's Arborfield, Swallowfield, Finchampstead and Barkham are likely only to be offered a place at Bulmershe, which for some children, including mine, will be a 90 mile a week bus journey from as early as next year.
There are already over 80 more children needing places - we expect the demand from current Y4 will be a lot worse and we are waiting for an FOI request to give us the true picture of what's going on.
WBC scuppered our plans for a Free School, which would have been delivered quicker and parents would have more say in the style and ethos of the school by announcing they would guarantee a school in Sept 2016. We have now lodged a formal complaint against them for the way in which they have handled the whole situation.
The reason why we had to halt our bid, which was entering an advance stage, was that it would have been impossible to try and sell a school that would be in the same place, delivered at the same time to the same parents - madness.
So we have now formed a pressure group. Go to our FB page www.facebook.com/groups and also our website sowfreeschoolgroup.org.uk/ Our TV and radio interviews are posted on the FB site, along with media releases and comment on what is going on.
The more parents we can get to support the campaign for a s/s school for the SOW area - the stronger our voice becomes in making sure WBC deliver on this guarantee - many of us are sceptical that it was nothing more than a cheap election ploy!