Implications of a bulge class?

[yetanotherdeskmove]

Found out recently that the school my child will be attending is putting on a bulge class this year, going from a 2 form entry to 3. My child is one of the original children accepted, not the new class so we have been told they will not be affected, existing classes will stand and the bulge class will be house in a separate new classroom to be added (where I don't know!).

I'm concerned though that there are wider implications of resource in a school already stretched for space, and also what the implications are for dc2 who is due to start in sept 17. Does this mean another bulge class is likely to be added that year to allow siblings of this years bulge class to attend, or does it just mean the distance rules will be stricter that year and some siblings will not get a place?

Hmm, not sure. My DS is in a reception bulge class at his school. The school have managed it brilliantly and fortunately they had the space. This sept DD is joining the school - there was no demand for a bulge class this year, so there won't be one. So the reception class will go back to 2 classes while Y1 expands to 3. What I'm saying, I suppose, is that it entirely depends on the demands of your local area.

It depends on how the numbers look for the rest of the years, but yes, places may be more restricted in future years as more sibling places are granted, unless the whole school expands. It is unlikely that all the siblings of this years intake will want a Sept 2017 place.

The bulge class is put in the school most likely to be able to cope with the additional numbers.

It could be that it is a one off.

My DD is in a bulge year (now in yr2) & the school have not done it since so her year group is the only year with 3 classes.

It also makes no difference whether the child is in the actual bulge class or not (in terms of day to day goings on in the school).

I THINK DD is in the bulge class this year (I believe the school have to state each year which is the bulge class). In terms of positives: your child will have more kids to make friends from

The knock on effects, depending on why there's a need for a bulge class this year, may be that local secondary schools will be over-subscribed come the time when DS will be moving up.

This may not be an issue in cities where there are no natural relationships with primary and secondary schools, where everyone goes their own way at 11. But in areas such as where I live, where all of the primaries go to the one secondary for miles around, I'd be worried about the secondary's ability to cope with an extra large year 7 more than a bulge class in primary.

DD's Infant took on a bulge class when she moved to Y1. Yes, it was a bit of a squeeze at lunchtime and for assemblies etc but otherwise the school did it brilliantly. It didn't change the focus of the school or the feel of it.

The feeder Junior now gets the class next year and a new classroom is being built at the moment. Not sure how this will change the school.

The knock-on effect for places was huge. Two years running the majority of spaces was taken by sibling, one year it was 45 out of 60.

We will have an issue with secondary as catchments go smaller anyway and around 1/3 of all primaries in our borough had to either take bulge classes or expand permanently.

Bulge classes can have a knock on effect for admissions a couple of years later. If the school gives priority to siblings, they are probably the least affected by this. That's probably especially true if the schhols admissions criteria are siblings then distance and you were admitted within the original PAN. As long as all the other siblings don't suddenly move closer to the school you should be OK.

The bigger effect is on the number of non-siblings admitted. That can be drastically cut after a bulge year as almost all the places are taken with siblings. It can make a huge difference to the distance of the last child offered a place in the distance category.

In Islington, a bulge class is only added to a school which is at least OfSted "Good" and the Head Teacher of which, together with the Governing Body have agreed to the bulge class. This involves them doing a "deal" acceptable to both sides regarding resources...

Strictly, in law a "bulge class" is a one off for one year only, but it may be a preliminary to a permanent expansion of the school which requires a consultation process, formal increase in the PAN and so forth.

Again, in Islington, bulge classes are not created until after the first offer round is over and areas of excess to current capacity demand can be identified. I happen to know that this year, at least one bulge class, which had all the arrngements in place other than staffing it, will not now happen as not, in the event, required. Perhaps next year it will be needed , and then it will happen...

Thanks everyone you have reassured me quite a bit. I don't think there will be too much implication to secondary as we are in a city and there is no one secondary the school feeds into they are spread across quite a few different ones.

Quite a few of our local schools have taken one-off bulge classes.

It plays absolute havoc with admissions 2 years later (and, to a lesser extent, 3 years later) as there are masses of extra siblings. A local 60 PAN school had 20 spaces to offer to non siblings two years after the bulge. Their effective catchment area about halved.

So, as you have a DC2 in that time frame , check that there is sibling priority and that you will qualify for it. That would be a big issue for me. If the school is taking 90 and not 60, it's unlikely that those 90 children will create 60 siblings in 2 years, but 40-45 is not unthinkable. So your younger child could aslo be in a very 'sibling heavy' intake.

Other than that, the implications tend to be minimal. One problem can be if the bulge class is in rather rubbish accommodation, but you shouldn't be affected by that by the sounds of things.

DD in year 3 is in a bulge year where the school took 90 instead of 60. They will not take another bulge class until her year group have moved to high school as there physically isn't room to put them - they've put a portakabin in the playground to fit her year in. In terms of impact on the school generally there really hasn't been much. While they went through infants the portakabin was used for small group work and the extra class went into the small room that was previously used for this. Now they're in ks2, an upper ks2 class is in the portakabin.

DS1 is currently in reception, all siblings to date have been offered a place, although the number of distance places offered in the last 2 years has gone down slightly. The school was inspected a few weeks ago and retained its outstanding result though, so they must be doing pretty well all round.

The problem will be at high school - the council are apparently building 2 new high schools in the next 4 years to accommodate all the bulge classes they put in at various primaries in the last few years.

Will the bulge class be there to "mop up" unplaced children from the wider area? This might mean friends are spread over a wider distance. Particularly if the children are mixed together. I assume the school can mix the "bulge pupils" in with the others, such that there isn't one class actually identified as "the bulge class"

Yes the bulge class is there to accommodate some children from slightly further away who have not been allocated a place at all, so thinking about it further it shouldn't implicate my dc2 getting a place as there is definitely sibling priority and we are very close on distance.

They are keeping the bulge class as separate, they told us so at the new parents meeting.

Gosh. I didn't know they were allowed to do that. Round here bulge classes have been added pre allocation. But I thought if they were added after they had to take children from the waiting list first.

Hmm I may have got that wrong actually, the website says they will be contacting parents on the waiting list.

I thought that too, Penguins. Can't see how it would meet the Admissions Code otherwise. The only situation I could think of where that doesn't happen is if more spaces are created than there are children on the waiting list. In which case children without a place could be allocated as it's the nearest school with a place.

I had assumed that as there are children reasonably locally with no place at all they would get priority in this case but I suppose the waiting list movement will create them a place somewhere.

What does 'they are keeping the bulge as separate' actually mean? That the children will not take part in whole school events like assemblies or plays? That 2 Reception classes will put on one nativity play and the bulge class will put on its own individual nativity? That the bulge class children will not be allowed to take part in afterschool clubs? Or does it simply mean that there will be 3 individual classes taught by 3 individual teachers? It sounds like a potentially very divisive thing to say and I wonder whether it might have been misinterpreted.

I presumed what they meant by 'keeping the bulge class separate' was simply that they had already allocated classes and teachers to the intake of 60 and would make up a totally new class of 30 for the bulge, rather than re-shuffling. And presumably that the newly recruited teacher would teach the bulge class (or a class higher up the school) so that reception children who'd started a settling in process with a particular class and teacher wouldn't be changed around.

I really don't see how they could allocate bulge places to children without a current place. You'd get children who lived 2 miles away getting a place and children who lived 5m outside the effective catchment area not doing so. They will clear/take 30 children off the waiting list and that will create movement elsewhere, I would think. This is why it is so much better if they agree the bulge class in the massive window of time they have between December and April!

I guess they don't do it between December and April because some pupils allocated places will turn them down as they have private school places. Waiting will give a more accurate picture of need, but to the detriment of those with no place and even those who are mucked about in the shuffle through waiting lists.

The bulge class will be separate in that the two existing classes share a large room with a partition wall which is shut in the morning and opened in the afternoon, pupils have already been allocated a class and teacher etc. the bulge class is having a new classroom and won't be connected to the two existing classrooms. But yes of course will join in assemblies etc as a part of the school.

That's how my daughter's year group was arranged. FWIW, the parents of the bulge class kids, and the kids themselves, did feel rather cut off from the rest of the year, and it's taken until this year (year 3) to all shake down properly. It was things like the two normal reception classrooms had doors directly onto their play area, the other class didn't so needed taking to/from at specific times. There was a slightly separate area for pick up, which meant the parents didn't mingle as freely as those in the other two classes.

Although the bulge intake was split across the 3 classes, not kept as a single group as I think your school is planning? The intake was the first 30 off the waiting list who accepted the offer, which freed up spaces in other schools which went to some of those who hadn't been offered a place at all (there were a few 100s of them!).

we found buldge classes in crodyon had a ripple effect though other schools -

so they allocated the buldge after admissions

therefore waiting list for school with buldge all got accepted (so the nearest 30 pupils to that school.. if you like ) then spaces appeared all over the borough..

There were a fair few buldges - btu a lot of movement - class lists constantly changed though the summer term -but come Sept all was settled

*(Hope that makes sense!)