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?

I think the equal preference system is fairest tbh.

The problem is that Surrey has been closing schools and reducing places whilst the birth rate and immigration rate has been steadily rising.

If you can bear to read through that thing I copied and pasted it states that as an objection - that Surrey is refusing to recognise the increasing birth rate in the area, ie childre that had already been born - we're not talking forecasts! Also the parents who only had pre-school aged dc knew nothing about their plans yet they were the people who would have been most affected.

We also have the double whammy of the recession meaning some people that would have gone private can no longer afford to do so.

Jo Jo circus. How horrible for you. I sympathise. Just when I think I can't hear anymore dismal stories regarding SCC, there is another one and my blood pressure shoots up again. The evidence would suggest that the council are in complete denial over primary places (particularly). It just makes parents feel so utterly powerless.

Perhaps it is all part of a masterplan to ensure more and more free schools spring up over the country.

There is here in the Wigan Borough (DS refused places in 9 most local schools). I have written to my MP (as did another poster on here who lives in the same area) about the situation and he has taken it to the local paper who have covered the story on the front page.

I don't know what he can do about it but it says that he is setting up talks with council officials and head teachers to discuss it and that they hope for a positive outcome...

I am quite fortunate that my local MP, Andy Burnham, is also the shadow Education Secretary so has a vested interest in the subject as well as being a local man with children of his own.

Catherine

Every school in our area (West London) is having to make a Bulge class (in our school's case, emergency Bulge) for this year's Reception intake with portacabins in playgrounds etc. Again, lots of new housing with no provision. Council knew about this four years ago, but no joined up thinking.

@befuzzled - definitely a 6 year old could design a better system! Can you clarify: do you mean the families that drive in to your local school that you couldn't get into are siblings of existing pupils, or do you mean they were allocated the school and not you, even though you put it down as a preferred choice/first choice....I thought the whole point of Surrey's system was that if your home was very near your choice school or schools, in effect you could choose where you want and get it.

@CarGirl - I think I sort of understood about most of what that consultation was all about! Instead of having so many consultations and so on, I don't know why they don't just consult parents and teachers; if everyone thinks a school is failing their kids/pupils, close it. If a school is doing very well and parents/teachers love it, consult teachers there about the feasibility of expanding it a bit. If one area is so heavily populated from new builds, build a new school. Simple.

I am thinking that this might be councils' ways of pushing families who previously used to send children to private schools to go back there (even if it involves selling one's soul or robbing the grandparents!!!!!) and free up the school places for remaining families who can't afford private. If you actually look at the number of school places in the entire country, if all children in private schools went into the state sector, we'd be short of places for about 30% of the population, I bet. That puts this country back in the same position as a third world country, not a G8 nation!!!

P.S. Just to clarify - not close a failing school the way a business gets closed down and disappears, but to change the way it is run with new headteacher, administrators and some new teaching staff, ie special measures. Reorganisation if one must.

@ Surrey parents. It is the lead story again in the local paper this morning. (surrey mirror but couldnt find a link to post here. Sorry!)

Link is finally working. I think they post the article online on Fridays :
www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/School-places-crisis-growing/article-3546116-detail/article.html
www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/School-extra-pupils/article-3546153-detail/article.html -better news but still doesn't solve all the problems

The realy reason why Surrey shut the school in Byfleet (one of the best in the country) and tried to close the one in Addlestone as they wanted to sell the land to raise money and save on senior salary staff and overhead costs it had NOTHING to do with how well the schools were/weren't peforming.

They are having to put in a bulge class for 30 in September in Byfleet, they only shut the infant school 3 years ago!

Councils act short-sightedly, and live birth rates aren't great, but there is a deeper problem with planning and how land is developed.

I fell guilty wriitng here, because I got my son into a school I'm really happy with. But admissions here to a cause of concern. Story goes like this: seven years ago a develop proposed building c.300 new homes on a greenfiled site on the edge of the estate I live on, this plan included paying for a new school building and health centre, although running costs would fall on the council. Those living in the villagified areas to either side fought strenuosuly against the plan, and viewed it as a victory to get it scaked down to 70 homes dotted around, and no real incursion onto green field sites. The council merged two schools in SM serving the estate and expanded the school there, but nice MN parents like me (including many on the new development) thought 'no way, let's send our kids to the plausible schools close by', thereby instantly removing the 'security' option for the kids of protesting folk who didn't get into their 'village' schools. Hence it's the same folk who are now protesting that their kids have been allocated the estate school who objected to the development that would have avoided that in the first place.

Now I know nobody on the thread is like that-but I have a certain sympathy for councils trying to balance local pressure on the peripheries of towns for small developments without associated new costly infrastructure with the need to provide decent education for all. Until folk are willing to see sensible concentrated new development rather than opportunistic filling in its very hard to sort things out.

I am in a similar part of Surrey to alot of the people on this post it seems! Lots of friends have missed out on places they expected to get this year. Fortunately for us (ish) we were fairly certain of where we would get as we are right next to it and it is very unpopular! We chose to go the independent route, and next year's reception in dd's school will have an extra class, having been unable to fill their classes last year!

Thanks for the info about Byfleet and the bulge class, CarGirl.....and there we were thinking that the council just didn't like us in the eastern part of the county! I guess it is a county-wide problem. Maybe we should start a thread about whether the bulge classes are a good idea. I wouldn't like children to spend their entire primary school career using portacabins (which is where they house the bulge class in all the schools I visited) but they did reassure me that the classes take turns to be in them, so it's not the same children in them year in year out.