Bulge classes are negative.But most schools will have them next year.

[Oblomov]

Unpresidented Baby Boom Year, for admissions next year, for Sep 13.
All our local schools are talking about having bulge classes, for next year.
But lets be honest, not much about them is postive, are they ?
They affect everything. Everyone. Throughout the school.
When I mentioned this to mums in the playground yesterday, they were very saddened and talking about how disruptive it was to the whole school.
I just can't see a positive spin on this.

Bulge classes can be a negative, in dcs school the LEA has doubled 30 to 60 for a few years, now LEA pulling the plug as have realised not practical due to the site to make into double entry form. Nothing to do with nimbyism, just when they actually bothered to visit the site they realised it couldn't be done. Now many of those who benefited from the bulge years are facing a year or more of sleepless nights to see if all siblings get in, as numbers are close to the wire, and they live the furthest out. The next few years, even those living next to the school might not get places, but will be in a black hole for any other school. The people who have a long term, worry free gain are those with only children, or who live a long way out but happened to squeeze both children into the bulge years.

The people who got in on the bulge years live further away and so are more likely to drive. The lunch hall is a military operation, and woe betide any reception child who takes more than 20 min to eat lunch, or the ks2 child who is hungry before 1. The numbers of children needing places is even higher over next few years, so due to lack of planning there will now be even fewer places available for first borns. Ds's class will be almost all younger siblings, so will probably be more streetwise than a mixed class, and will know each other more due to being in playground, going to nursery etc, so will be harder for first borns etc to break into.

Taking either 45 or bulge classes alternate years (as many people have a 2yr age gap) would have reduced these problems and led to more sustained growth (though not sure I entirely like mixed classes). I don't have a problem with the principle of expansion, if the school is able to take it and sustain it, but these assessments need to be done in advance so the best solution can be found for each school/area, rather than as a knee jerk reaction when mrs mumsnet can't get her child a school place in a 15 mile radius. As many have said the LEAs haven't prepared for the numbers involved, which must have been apparent when we all started trying to book in with our midwives only to realise that she was fully booked for next 3 weeks.

Lets be clear I don't want children travelling miles to a struggling school, which will lose students as 'better' offers come up over the years, I don't object in principle to expansion (I could have gone on about the lack of playground space, assembly space, wrap around care spaces, afterschool club spaces, nursery places etc), but it needs to be managed and planned otherwise it is just creating a bigger timebomb. I am lucky as we were there before the expansion, so confident for ds's place, and I don't have a first born due to start soon. Controlled expansion and new schools, yes, random dropping of portacabins (which are actually nicer than some existing classrooms), and lack of foresight/planning to see if the provision can cope with the expected intake for next 4+ years, doesn't help in the long term.

Bunnies puts it, better than I ever could.
No one wishes anyone else to have to travel outside of catchment. We all want a place for all the children who need one.
Its just, that as per usual, (as with just about everyhting else, these days) this all could have been better planned for.

"Every Child Matters".
No, every PENNY matters.

No I don't think mrs mumsnet is unreasonable at all, and that's not what I said, what I do think is unreasonable is the lack of joined up thinking that means that when mrs mumsnet and her neighbours go to the midwife with their happy news, that this doesn't filter through to the LEA, town planners etc (not that I am blaming midwives for that before I get flamed!).

I think children should be in local, good schools, but this should have been planned, and a bulge class per se may just exacerbate the problem if there isn't the capacity to follow through in years to come, as our school is facing, with 2 or 3 years when the LEA has put a stop to bulge classes/expansion, meaning that anyone even next door might not get a place due to siblings. A controlled expansion would have reduced this, our school has three bulge classes, if this had been spread out then the school could have expanded to a 1.5 form intake (although I personally prefer not having mixed classes); which could more or less have been spread across the whole school population. Instead we have a situation when some families living quite a long way away have got places(when they could have gone to other schools), at the expense of families next door next year. Fine if they had made it a double entry school throughout, but as it is it's all a bit of a mess.

Basically we need more schools, and schools expanding to a reasonable size based on an assessment, rather than the LEA playing god putting in bulge classes and taking them away again.

There are downsides to opening new schools and permanently expanding/re-organising existing local schools as well. The birth rates are only known 3 ish years into the future (because of the age of the children involved), and so massive permanent expansion might prove not needed before a new primary school has even opened all 7 (or 8 including nursery) years. It could prove totally unsustainable. The same could be true for existing primaries having big permanent buildings put up on playing fields.

Sometimes there are no suitable sites for building a new school in the area where birthrates are rising.

I agree LAs should be planning better and further in advance, but there simply aren't straightforward risk-free options.

Ironically I have it on reliable information that the LEA do know what the birthrate trends are as they are used to plan secondary provision etc it just seems that they ignore the impact of them???

Perhaps it will be back to the 1970's where they start school after their 5th birthday and they go back to first and middle schools (as opposed to primary or infant & junior) again as it's cheaper to keep the bulge years in middle school than them go up to secondary.

So what is going to happen when all schools are academies? Who do we blame for getting the numbers wrong and running out of places? Are la still in charge of that?

La can as far as I was told by DCs school still require academies to take extra pupils if necessary. There is just a bit more room for negotiation.
However, as the government doesn't let LAs just build schools, but they have to look for free schools and academies first, it is going to be slower for them to be able to produce whole new schools.

Bulge classes always affect the whole school, no doubt about it. They need space (usually a library, SEN or activity room rather than a portacabin), and are often treated as temporary in other ways (looking at job adverts at the moment a large number of EYFS teachers being offered one-year contracts to cover, so what happens next, especially come KS2 when ICS rules don't apply). They are not the same as 'expanding', they are an emergency solution.

And in some parts of the country they are, this is an unusually large intake and schools adjust (as they always have). Elsewhere they are being introduced when this isn't the case-when there is every likelihood that the school's intake will need to increase for many years. The destruction of LEA place matching systems, however flawed, by the introduction of free schools and academies is a serious threat to any sort of rational place provision, lost in debates about the merits of individual schools.

But, seriously, what do you want? That some children shouldn't go to school? That they are dumped in a new school in an ex-army base or disused government office? That they are taught in shifts? The 'positive spin' is EVERY child gets educated. If you can't do that, what is the point of having state-funded schools at all?

Does anyone know who has the final say on the PAN for (a) free schools, (b) academies, and (c) foundation schools?

I'm guessing it will either be the LA or the governors.

Every school has to have a net capacity calculation for their teaching areas. The school then sets a net capacity which is a sensible figure between the maximum net capacity and 90% of it. Given that there are 7 year groups in a primary school the net capacity is quite often set at a figure which is multiple of 7 but it does not have to be. This is termed the agreed net capacity. The PAN is a sensible figure around the agreed net capacity divided by 7 for a primary school, but it is up to the school to agree this. So ultimately you could say it is the governing body in the three school types above who have responsible for the final say as to what the PAN is.
However you also need to be aware that when the new admission code properly comes into force (from SEptember 2012 when the admission process starts, there is more leeway for the school to also exceed the PAN.

Our small infant school (so far 190 children in 7 classes, one is a SEN class) gets one.

The head immediately called a parent meeting to explain how it will be dealt with and to re-assure the parents.

The council already said the school will not get another one and even the Junior school next door is planning how to cope in 3 years time.

Yes, there may be issues with siblings but again we had two years where siblings made up 3/4 of the new entrants. It is not uncommon for our school.

The council funds a new teacher and TA, they also pay to convert the room into a new classroom including new toilet area.

While I am sad that we loose a multi-purpose room as it will be the new classroom I am glad for the 25 children as it is a very good school and if I would be in the parent's shoe of not having a more-or-less local school I wouldn't be happy.

There are 75,000 places missing in London. The government and the councils turned a blind eye towards the problem. For all you who don't like this, think what you would do if your child would be out of a school place.

An effect of bulge year on an infant school in our area is that children who came in during the first bulge year alot of them lived not within walking distance - subsequent years when their siblings come along - sibling are higher on the admissions scale - hence one year children living within walking distance to the school didn't get in - bizarre.

As a result this school has now changed it's admission policy so that siblings that the school is not the nearest is now the bottom criteria.

There has to be some balance in this.

Many schools cannot accommodate bulge years - yes stick a portacabin in the playground - great for three years - say for an infant school but low and behold when the first bulge year moves on - the LEA tell the school they have yet to have another one . The planning permission for many of these portacabins is only 5 years so if the LEA continue with insisting to have further bulge years then they will have to do permanent builds .

Bulge years also change the whole ethos of a school - no full school assemblies , staggered playtimes , staggered lunchtimes - because LEA will not pay to make school kitchen bigger to feed say another 120 children( junior school based on 4 form entry).

I have two children at a junior school that will take its first bulge years of two necxt year - all planned for and building in progress only to find out in January that the local infant school have been told to take another bulge year in Sept 2012 - which we will see in 2015 !