Is there a lack of primary school places in your area?

[Rosenotinyorkshire]

Just out of curiousity really. I live in an area of Surrey which has proved to be appalling this year for primary schools being (very) over subscribed. I was lucky to get my DC into our first choice on the sibling rule but many friends have missed out on 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices and are finding themselves low down on waiting lists at preferred schools. How has it been for others in different parts of the country?

Big issue with school places here. Brand new 2 form primary school opens this Sept, 1km from my house and is already full. Catchment was 300m radius of the school building.

We're 150m from another school and 400m from another one, and hoping we'll get into one of them. Thankfully they are well fairly good. Got an email at christmas (before the application deadline) tells us the LA was adding on 90 extra reception places for this year and hoping to add another 100 if they can find enough temporary buildings.

We're in a massive new build extension to a town, full of young families. My gps surgery has a baby born for every day of the month!

I'm in South London. Two of the schools nearest me, and about half the ones in the borough, have at least one 'bump' class where an extra 30 R/Y1 kids are put somewhere. And the birth spike locally got worse a couple years later.

Loads of people who would normally move out to somewhere more rural before kids hit school age haven't, thanks to house prices, fuel/train prices, etc. At least two of the new schools being built didn't get cancelled, but with all those extra kids having siblings the distances for catchments are going to shrink further. SIL is also South London and looking at catchments for next year of under 250 metres!

Thank you LIZS. Waiting list info out tomorrow, will see what options we have. Yes, saw DG on the list of schools, but didn't think about it. Do you mean Sc (it's one word) or St Catherine's which is actually in another village? Am guessing Sc? That was a bit far away for us. I think the whole problem with this school place thing is just not enough classes for an expanding population. I mean, you know things are really bad when you start making tentative phone calls to independent schools and even THEY say they are full too, recession notwithstanding......... of course, I know central London has it just as bad.

Yes meant Sc although St C's is often overlooked (has a S and L unit) but a good 20 min drive. You'll probably be too late for independents now although some parents may have been awaiting the outcome of LA allocations and give notice next week.

We are in Derbyshire and you would be hard pressed to find a school that didn't have spaces tbh in our local area. Certainly when I looked for dd mid yr1 I could take my pick of any school in a 5 mile radius.

No quite the opposite there are 20 in a class in most schools, the ones who's names begin with saint tend to be full but you could get a place if you were organised enough.

W are in rural Dorset, DD's school can take 24 a year, there are 18 in her class and only 9 in the year above, same as the other local schools, so no problem about getting in here, however we do have a very fluid population due to us being in the vicinity of two military bases.

OMG Five can I pick your brains about your area I am driving down in a few weeks to have a look around schools and would love some inside information.

It's a minefield and just glad our children are already well into primary school. But we did have a huge problem with eldest child getting him into school of our choice (he's in Year 5) and only got second child in on sibling rule (otherwise there would have been no chance!). On our side of the Borough the schools are generally rubbish whereas in the affluent part the schools are brilliant (there's a surprise) so we were unwillingly to compromise his education just because we can't afford an astronomical mortgage! There were months of nail-biting and extreme compromise before we did eventually get offered a place at the school of our choice....but I do remember the bods at our Council denying that there was an upturn in the birthrate (which we'd summized based on stories from friends etc...) even though it has since proved to be correct. It is very poor indeed when 'lay people' seem to have more of a handle on what's going on that those who are paid to plan.
Don't think it's worth wasting time appealing unless you are 100% sure that procedures weren't properly followed in allocating places...
But do have faith as there is still a lot of movement with places etc....people get places and then move out of Borough etc.....but I would really advise that you quickly get on the case - looking for any other half decent schools that you may not have considered (i.e. faith schools).

Pick away mamatomany, going out in a minute so will be back on later.

It's very bad where we live, there's been a large influx of communities who are having very large families and even if they planned accordingly I wonder whether there is the political will to build new schools?

I'm sure Michael Gove would fund fancy pants selective schools for journos like Toby Young to get their kids into. But the simple need for local primary schools isn't a flashy enough idea for him I guess. They'll blame labour for it any way.

Thank you so much, i've sent you a private message

hi rose we live in the same place as you and this is not a new problem. My son is in private y1 because he didn't get any of our 3 choices for Reception 3y ago. We live a stones throw from the high st. Same thing happened 2y before to a load of people (first H bulge year). It pretty much goes on a 3y cycle for the really bad years but is alwaus tight, as you no doubt know. It is a terrible shame because is pretty much a perfect place to live with young families imo apart from the nightmare schools issue.

We are lucky, we are in a rural village with a school that is CofE and it's own admission authority. About 6 years ago the PAN was 16 and they filled those places from the catchment with some places able to go to people further out but then more families started moving into the village so they put the pan up to 18 and things continued on happily then the school got it's first outstanding in all areas which pulled more and more families into the village and surrounding catchment, the PAN went up to 20 and that was as high as it could go with the existing buildings and class structure. We applied for a place for dd to start in September 09 and that is when things started to get tricky. There were enough places for all but one of the catchment siblings and catchment children (so the schools predictions had been pretty good) however the children who had joined the school when there were non catchment places available now found they didn't get places for the younger siblings coming through (catchment is higher priority then non catchment siblings here which I think personally is quite right). However the school had been planning away knowing that the numbers of children in the village was keeping on growing as for many reasons our village was more and more desirable for families and had secured funding to build a new reception classroom which meant that there would now be no mixed year classes in KS1 (only Y4 is now split and they are very creative in making sure that class sizes remain small) and as this new classroom was due to be opened in the January all who appealed for 09 entry got a place as the school did not argue against them, the school wanted these children but were bound by the PAN in the first round of admissions.
For reasons I don't know the PAN at the school remains at 20 but the current reception class has a few more then that, I will be applying at the end of the year for my ds entry in 2012 and I will be interested to see if the PAN remains as 20.
There is planning permission in place to build a final classroom which will give each year group it's own class it is just getting the finding now which I have no doubt the school will do. They are dedicated to ensuring that all children in the village and surrounding area can go to the local school.
This is a good example (IMO) of a school looking at how it's surrounding area is changing, what the population consists of, how many children and siblings are likely to be coming through and adapting the school in preparation. I fail to see how so many schools and LEA's are failing to do this, I know my example is very small scale and is made easier due to being a rural area with a small community but it seems that LEA's need to look at examples like this in order to ensure they are meeting the needs of their community when it comes to school places.

I totally agree that in towns and cities the population is much much more fluid and the planning time for forecasting how many school places are needed is greatly reduced however the case of flats being put up and housing the problem of school places should be addressed at the planning stage, the size and type of properties is a good gage to how many children are likely to come to live there, there is time, just about to address this in the time between first planning application and completion, there is also the idea that planning should not be granted if a development is going to overwhelm existing schools and leave existing areas outside catchment for any schools (like a school catchment dead zone). The idea of 'town planning' seems to have been lost somewhere along the way with homes being squeezed in wherever they can fit them with no regard to infrastructure.

LIZS - thanks, we're not very high up, but as they say you can move down or up. A friend said she once saw her daughter move from over one hundred to getting a place although that was for nursery (3+) rather than reception.

I think maybe setting up of free schools could become more commonplace. But probably not a rate that London and some overpopulated areas need.

southofthethames, what part of surrey are you in? The system's crazy, surrey CC website showing some allocation data now, says somebody 27km was given a place at a school, and you weren't? That's not right.

I've thought about setting up a free school too. Been waiting 2 years for a state school place for my son. 2nd son just got into 1st choice, but still up for it if anybody's in the area (Redhill/Reigate). There's an infant school site in Reigate closing this summer, wish somebody would take it up.

Banjo12 - sorry, I am moaning a bit too much. Reigate and Banstead Council! Our house is not near the "desirable" spots apparently, not in a crime hotspot don't worry - just a bit off the beaten track. But I thought we were really near this lovely school which recently improved a lot (cf 10 years ago I am told) so I thought I didn't have to bother with independent schools. I did get a place elsewhere, it just wasn't any of my choices. I know the school. I wouldn't rubbish it. 2 families I knew were desperate to get there! (different year)

To be honest, if my child were older - eg Sept/October birthday as opposed to August, I 'd probably just let him go there. I can just foresee issues with social/behavioural things (they kind of already happen), not really academic things as he is quite up to speed with those (I don't believe in academic stuff before year 3 anyway, as long as the child enjoys school and doesn't get tormented by anyone - pupils or teachers - and doesn't torment anyone too!)

I just felt a smaller school will be more patient with problems of that variety, and when I visited the ones I chose demonstrated they were, whereas some of the other schools were more interested in pushing the children and telling the children "get on with it" - the feeling was, you're not the only child around here, pull yourself together, you're lucky to get a free school place. (A couple of parents told me this was what they experienced too). To be honest I thought about delaying school one year - but I was told I might not be allowed (ie he can go later but he'll still be in the same year as the older kids).

That's right where I am too. My son's borderline ADHD and wouldn't be too great left to his own devices, so I know where you're coming from - some schools deal with it a whole lot better. son's at a lovely private school (class of 15) now, he's really blossoming, but it'd be another matter entirely if he'd been in a class of 30 in a school which didn't see the kids past their behaviour. Im moving my younger son out of private next week cos he's managed to get a place in reception next year (financial reasons, not cos we don't like the school - wish he could stay forever!), don't know if there's a waiting list for his year, otherwise I'd tell you to ring them up and get the place.

I think for mine it's a maturity issue. He has more in common with kids with birthdays in Sept - Dec of his year than kids with birthdays in Oct- Jan that he will be going to school with and actually gets on with them better too. I am sure he will cope and of course in 6-7 years time it will not matter but if he's just going to be ignored in a big year or told "pull yourself together" then that's not a great way to handle things. Well, it sounds as though you've got a good arrangement for your 2 kids. Which private are you at? You can PM me if you prefer. Which school site is closing down?? (haven't heard about it yet)

School closing - sandcross infants (they're building classrooms to move all the children to the junior site, going to sell off the infants school). Have PM'd you about the school we go to, partly because I'm only ringing them up tomorrow, and I think they shoudl be first to know rather than it being posted on a website. The year group is fill with my son in, don't know whether it'll be full tomorrow after I've phoned up. Will let you know.