Huge new development set to open in school catchment, what will happen? Any experiences?

[BurntMyTongue]

Deliberately in Scotsnet because of the catchment area issue :)

Will the children still be entitled to a school place if they move in mid-year? Our wee school already has big classes and not much more room to grow.

They are supposed to keep a few places for kids that move into catchment but I don't think they hold them all year.
We've had this issue locally but the effect has been to stop all out of catchment placements ( which used to be quite considerable). It's caught a few people on the hop.

I mean all new out of catchment places.

I think the vast majority of current children are locals, I don't think there would be many placing requests.

There are hundreds of family homes being built.

I know my DD's class has 30 in it already- is it a case of 3 more and then the class is full, end of? Or can they be forced to make extra classes?

The seriously huge development planned for near me has a primary school and other amenities planned. I am more concerned that it will mean rezoning of secondary catchment areas.

Thing about new developments is that it tends to be a slow steady trickle rather than a flood. Check with planning department and education departments if you have concerns.

Not from Scotland.

I thought the much lauded thing about Scotland was that you could always get a place at your catchment school and they just put on extra classes / made mixed age classes as needed?

But otherwise OP, we've had a load of new developments near us (closest has ~1000 homes) and it seems to take time to ripple through to schools. They don't seem to suddenly get 100 new children needing placement in the same month.

It may not be as big as an immediate problem as you think. If it's a big development chances are the houses will be released in phases over a number of years. We moved into a medium sized development in a popular catchment area, but the development was released over 5 years. Got a mid year place at the school despite it being a bulge year, and class size still only 30. Lots of families that have moved in have under 5's.

The council should have taken it into consideration during planning application and have a plan to cope with impact. Be it extending school capacity, refusing placing requests, prioritising requests from the area to out of catchment school, or even a new primary school. Your local councillor should be able able to confirm? The biggest issue here is the impact on the high school though which will soon be bursting at the seams...

As a PP said, it won't all happen at once. The boundaries will probably be rejigged and at some point a new school built if required.

There would have to be a formal consultation before they changed the catchment.

There was a big stooshie when the new Hillhead Primary opened (having combined a couple of old primaries) and not everyone in catchment got in

I think it r fed up being resolved in the end (although not sure how) but there was definitely a lot of justified anger.

First step with new builds within catchment and pressure on capacity would be to stop "unrelated" placing requests; next step would be sibling placing requests would be rejected. Then any spare rooms (eg a library ) would be re-purposed as a classroom. In theory, if they still need more place for in-catchment pupils, they'd need to put in portacabin classrooms until a consultation to change the catchment had taken place.

The new estate will have been allocated a suitable catchment that may not be the most local school. When we moved to a new estate, we would have needed to make a placing request to the most convenient school but the whole estate were allocated the next nearest school as the official catchment. We moved to a new place before dc started school but I understand that some dc in the estate got places in the closest school on request and the rest happily went to the other one.

Where we live now, the primary school was expanded by the house builder as a condition of the planning approval.

This will all have been calculated out before the estate was approved.

Ah, I was expecting a sudden influx. Visions of coming back after Christmas with 300 extra kids!

I'll entertain myself with worrying about secondary now

I don't know if they have any spare rooms. I know the classes are all fairly big so there's really not much space in the school.

Our current local school was originally only 4 classrooms, the builders increased it to 8. That had to be completed prior to any of the houses being finished. Then they ended up with a portable classroom, then it was expanded by another 2 classrooms and still kept the portable classroom. They also got extra land allocated for the playground. Only issue now is that the hall was only ever designed for a 4 class school so they struggle with that.

It may not work out as an exact science but there are calculations made based on the sizes of the houses on the plan e.g 2.1 children per 4 bed, 1.4 children per 3 bed etc etc (those are dummy figures, I have no idea of the actuals are). That makes then estimate how many extra DC there will be and then there is soe other formula to generate the a amount of primary/secondary/nursery etc.

I can guarantee that this will have been thought about.

We live in East Dunbartonshire. Over the last 5 years Cala and Robertson have built hundreds of houses in the catchment area for the local secondary school.

Agree with others that these have been completed gradually and not everyone has moved at the same time. But what it does mean is that whereas in the past Bearsden Academy and Douglas Academy in Milngavie accepted placing requests, now you have no chance. People used to send their kids here from not only other places in East Dun but also neighbouring council areas like West Dunbartonshire, Stirlingshire, Glasgow City.

A couple of years ago when DD started there was uproar as about 90 placing requests were refused for the first time ever. It's not improved over the last two years, and now the situation is that unless there's a sibling already in the school, you've no chance. And as those siblings progress through the school and leave, it will be catchment only and no exceptions. Just no space.

The problem I am seeing that this is still not filtering through to parents at primary schools. My son is in P7 and there are children in his class living out of catchment in Glasgow city who are merrily going along to senior school induction because their parents think that everyone's just making a fuss and they'll get in anyway. Despite everyone telling them otherwise.

There really needs to be a lot more information given out to parents who opt for a placing request for P1 - i don't think they are told loudly enough of the impact of that decision if 7 years later they can't get into catchment secondary, or haven't moved. (Because of hte issues with school places, property round here is selling very quickly too).

And it's only going to get worse - at present Boclair is taking a lot of the kids whose parents wanted Bearsden/Douglas but they've announced they're knocking it down and building a new one, if it's the same as the other two it will be smaller and enough to accommodate catchment kids only.

Obviously the answer would be to get the builders to contribute to a new school but that's not happening!

is it a case of 3 more and then the class is full, end of? Or can they be forced to make extra classes?

On this point - DD's year was a "bulge" year in P1. An intake of 63 when they usually took between 45 and 50. In P1 they had two classes of 25 and a composite P1/P2. In P2, they had one class of 32 and one of 31. Parents challenged it, given class sizes are meant to be limited in Infants.

Was told that schools were free to breach the guidelines in exceptional circumstances, and that having lots of children was "exceptional". Also my oldest was in a composite P6/P7 with 32 children but they had two full time teachers so that worked out well for him. Less well for DD in a class of 32.

So yes, they could in theory rearrange classes but I'd say it would be up to the council. Internal workings of Councils and their decision making is a complete mystery.

The issue with not being able to take placing requests is different. The obligation is to provide for the children in the catchment and plans will have been worked out on that basis, not how popular the school is with people out with the catchment. This will be really disappointing for parents, I understand as my own DC went out of catchment, but it's the risk you take. I definitely think that they need to be communicating this more clearly and earlier though.

It's all part of the pressure on school places. If the Council approve even more houses - and Cala are applying for permission on every blade of grass - we are going to get to the stage of no space.

I have zero faith in the Council to be on top of this, part of the deal with Cala for the current houses was funding a redevelpoment of the leisure centre. Hasn't happened. Humming and hawing over plans, Cala want to get away with funding as small a centre as possible. Plans for an extra rail station. Hasn't happened.

The impact of a huge new housing development isn't just schools, it's GP, traffic, parking - everything.

The council should be putting proper conditions in. I know that in our estate they were not allowed to have any houses occupied until the school was completed and handed over. I think the council issue the habitation certificates so it is definitely within their power to do this.

However, the issue we have is the council saying no to plans and then the government saying yes...

In our area there hundreds upon hundreds of new homes. The council got the projections vastly wrong for number of school places. They used a national average of 16 primary places per hundred houses. But surprise surprise when most of the houses being built are 3/4/5 bed family homes the number of spaces required is more than double. It has put massive strain on the infrastructure. Are you on your Parent Council? I'd say they should be investigating the potential impact on your school. I got all 3 DC into our catchment school although had to travel for nursery, but I have many friends who couldnt get into their catchment school or had siblings at different schools.

In East Dunbartonshire when they built the new schools 10 years or so ago they were smaller than the old schools and one of the main reasons was to build to catchment size

Two similar issues in my council area. One of them new schooling is being built to match increase in demand. Other one is currently being managed within current capacity because the secondary has lots of spare capacity and the catchments of the 6 closest primary schools can be rejigged to accommodate.

In our area rolls have been falling as more and more of the older housing stock is being occupied by empty nesters. The new houses will redress the balance.

Our council publishes rolls for its schools so you can check capacity. It also publishes its deliberations on planning. eg there was a proposal to make one of the school catchments bigger to take in an historic dogleg-this has now been scrapped as it would put more pressure on the fullest primary. Local families are already realising they will no longer be able to use placing requests to get round the problem.

woody surely that is a bulge year rather than a permanent problem?

Ah, I was expecting a sudden influx. Visions of coming back after Christmas with 300 extra kids!

If the SNP remove charitable status or follow Labour into getting rid of private education that's exactly what will happen.

In our area of was a mix of re zoning of catchment areas and also extra classes to become a 4 class intake in P1-P3 dropping to 3 classes in P4. It all took a few years to settle down.

It's completely untrue that in Scotland every child can attend their catchment school.

If there's no room, there's no room. Not every school has the physical capacity to provide extra classes.

Many schools have had to refuse places to pupils whose catchment it is.

I live in a town which has had thousands of new houses built recently. What has happened is:

• lots of new children being bussed to out-of-catchment schools as there's just no space
• two primaries out of four being physically extended by four classrooms each
• one new primary planned (clearly this is what the developers promised RIGHT WHEN THEY STARTED but won't be open for another two years
• consultation to redraw the catchment for the High School, which depends on a brand new high school being built a few miles away (where there's also new housing planned).

The problems weren't massive to start with, but things came to a crunch last school year, particularly as new people moving in were being refused local places and were pissed off because they'd really been sold this dream of a lovely home with a lovely primary school a lovely five minute walk away. Don't blame them.

I think I might live near @woodymiller it's an absolute shit show, with all the local high schools now working at capacity even with catchment area rejigs. They're meant to be replacing two of them with a shared campus but even that's a bit pie in the sky now because one of the school buildings has been forced out of action and the +1300 pupils have all been displaced to wherever the council can fit them.

The primaries have allocated catchment areas and you can put a placing request but it's not guaranteed. Where I am is pretty much equidistant between two primaries, and people around me who lived on the wrong side of the catchment line for their preferred primary (e.g. kid had been allocated a place at the school nursery attached to their non-catchment primary and they wanted the child to continue into p1 there) didn't have their requests approved.