The Islington Schools' Forum met last week and considered school place planning for next year.
Islington takes the view that the number of applicants for Islington Primary Schools, which rose last year, will rise again next year. In order to accommodate these extra numbers Islington plan to re expand schools which contracted during the past period of falling rolls. Over the next few months all schools will be re surveyed to check how many children, under strict government rules which aim to guarantee enough space per child, each school could in fact accommodate, and how much it would cost to re instate the space.
They will be looking at a combination of factors; the particular areas where demand will rise, mainly to the south of the Borough, choosing popular schools to expand, and value for money.
All children will have places in schools that meet the government standards for local authority schools and do this at low cost.
(Oddly, although Islington are required by law to adhere to certain minimum standards for school accommodation, Free Schools are not.)
In the area this thread is about, without the proposed Free School, there would be no shortage, especially as applications in Crouch End, in Haringey, now seem to be on a downward trend for the third year running.
Should the Free School open on the old Ashmount Site, albeit in a building abandoned by Islington as not fit for purpose for use by a Islington Primary School, there will be a surplus of places in the area of about 20 per cent.