Primary-school places shortfall: what's happening where you live?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

It's headline news today that one in five primary schools are now full or near capacity.

And, with 240,000 new primary-school places needed for 2014, the National Audit Office is saying the Department of Education "faces a real challenge... there are indications of strain on school places".

We were wondering how you all feel about this? Do you have a child due to start primary school in September? Are you aware of a shortage of places in your area? What steps are your local council taking to make school places available to all those who need one?

Please do let us know.

[gallicgirl]

What happens if the child is not offered any place as described above?

Does your child simply not go to school until a place comes available?

[edam]

Tiggy, I've heard of that before - kids who don't have any place not being bumped up the queue - and it's shit. Councillors really should be changing the policy to make sure children without a place are top of the list. Glad your dd or ds has finally got somewhere, but what a ridiculous amount of stress to put you through.

[Manchesterhistorygirl]

I've just a had a nose in the planning system, for other reasons, and discovered that there is a planning application in for an extension to an existing classroom at ds1's school. Which as I can't access the planning docs, and neither are they at school (I was unaware if any planning permission being applied for), I have to assume means that somewhere along the line more playground space will be lost.

The annoying thing is that ds1's school just finished a huge amont of building work and they're intending to start again! Our council are utterly, utterly incompetent! Furthermore, I'm in a rant here, as I mentioned upthread, the preschool has unprecedented demand for September, but the same council has out the building they use under threat of closure to save money! There is no nursery provision in the village other than preschool.

[lrichmondgabber]

Mr Gove does not even look up to the job he has been given. No sign of intellect

[lrichmondgabber]

Victoria Derbyshire says primary schools are not over crowded in South Wesat London

[waxlyrical]

Many Councils are struggling as they are under immense pressure to allow new housing to be built but at the same time the government is weakening their powers to secure new infrastructure such as schools. There are several new housing developments in this area (rural midlands) with new primary schools proposed but whether these will really be delivered remains to be seen.

[MsPickle]

merry I hope at least a decent proportion of those are HE but I suspect most are those who haven't/can't navigate the system. A friends cleaner was in bits about a lack of reception place, English isn't her first language and she was baffled. A few middle class phone calls and a place was found at her 2nd choice school. The list that the borough held wasn't up to date/accurate.

The comment about flats was also interesting earlier, our bit of Lambeth is changing fast and from the GP practices onwards there's concern about the pressures they'll face & the cuts in funding. I'm scared about a lack of Sept 2014 place but know we'll sort it somehow. I fear for the children for whom sorting it isn't an option.

As for pre school places, that's just a bloody joke.

Sometimes I wish we could move to an underpopulated area. But DH in particular has a London based career. And I can't see that a move to commuter belt will help us. I keep thinking I should find out about HE now, 'just in case'.

Sigh. But Cameron et al are too busy playing party politics to do anything meaningful. By which I mean, as someone said, feeling that your child can happily go to your nearest school

[TuttoRhino]

We've just moved from Lambeth to Lewisham. Our old flat was in a similar area to some of the Lambeth dwellers on the thread. The closest community school to our old flat has pretty much been turned into a three form entry which seemed too big. I grew up overseas and always went to really small schools. There were a couple of small CoE schools nearby but we aren't believers and stood little chance of getting in.

Where we live now we should get our DD into our first choice school, based on distance, especially as it is doing a bulge year in September. If we don't we're screwed, as the next three nearest schools are all outstanding and totally and utterly over-subscribed. We're way out of all of their current catchment boundaries which are all between 300-400 metres.

I can't even think about what it will be like with secondary school places.

[MrsMcEnroe]

We live in Bournemouth where there is a huge shortage of primary school places. I think DS is in the last year group (currently in Y4) where there are just about enough places in the borough for each child to have a school place - albeit not necessarily in their catchment school.

DD, now in Y1, is in a year group where there was a shortfall of 300-400 Year R places; this was situation was predicted in the newspapers at least 2 years before we had to apply for her school place, and the LEA acknowledges that it is drastically short of school places, which of course will only get worse as they approach secondary school. It is a terrible situation to be in.

Given that we live in a town where there is a lot of immigration, both from elsewhere in the UK (articularly from London) and from abroad, the waiting lists for primary schools are getting longer and longer during each academic year. Many schools had to put on a bulge class last year, or are doing so this coming year, and there is talk of this becoming permanent and/or new primary schools being built; no idea when or where. This is all straight from the horse's mouth (i.e. the Head of Admissions at Bmouth Council). Anybody moving into the area with a child who needs an in-year transfer to a primary school in YR, Y1 or Y2 will not have a chance of getting allocated a school that scores higher than level 3 on Ofsted (I know that not everyone sets great store by Ofsted reports, but many do) and they are highly unlikely to be offered a school place close to their home. Like someone upthread, our DD is currently sitting on the waiting lists for a state school place whilst being educated at a private school; this is not a situation that is sustainable for us in the long-term and in fact we may well have to give notice next term, in the hope that a place comes up for her before September (shes no.2 on the waiting list for our catchment school, and no.14 (!) on the waiting list at DS' school as, although she has a sibling there, we are out of catchment although only 0.8 miles away from the school). May have to home-school her for a term or two until a place becomes available as we have pretty much run out of money.

DS' junior school, by the way, has 4-form entry as standard, and currently has a fifth Y3 bulge class and the linked infant school will have a fifth YR bulge class in September. The infrastructure simply cannot cope with this; there is nowhere to hold whole-school assemblies, computers are now on trollies rather than being stationed permanently in classrooms, the kids eat packed lunches in their classrooms, the surrounding streets are bloody lethal at school-run time, the gates are jammed with kids and parents, the infant school's outside space is tiny ..... and there are now additional numbers of children who need SEN support etc (including my DS!) so resources are really, really stretched.

As others have said - these problems have been building for years and years. It's wicked that nothing has been done about it before now.

I will happily sign any petition etc going that might get the powers-that-be to sit up and take notice ...

[MsPickle]

Perhaps we need a toddler/small child protest? Buggy March on Westminster? Time running out of snacks as we get close?!

Or, in an era of increasing privatisation launch a reclaim private fees/full time childcare fees campaign for anyone who's had to use those routes because they didn't have a place?

[BoffinMum]

It may predate Gove but he is at this precise moment in time ultimately responsible for ensuring every child who needs one has a school place he or she can realistically access.

A class action of angry parents would be interesting! Or more realistically a judicial review of his £1 billion spend on academies over 2 years instead of generating new places where they are required (and I have not even costed up free schools in that equation).

[andiem]

IN SW London where I live DS2 didn't get a primary place we went private suddenly everyone has found god..............

[Manchesterhistorygirl]

Wait everyone it's ok! Gorgeous George is about to give those of us who don't receive tax credits a £1k tax break on childcare, oh no wait IDS, that charming champion of the parent, has decided to scrap it.

I truly don't have the words at times!

On a related note, sorry for the hijack, but could any of you out on the Wirral please pm me with details of the school situation there please. Dh is working out there and we are debating our options.

[Domjolly]

I am not sure is it not a case that simply most parents are trying to get there children into the same outstanding schools

We have schools in. Our area people have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that have plenty of roo, but no oe wants them

[MerryCouthyMows]

Tiggytape is right - there are areas where NO schools have spaces, not even the ones in 'Special Measures'. Yet there are still DC's in that area without places ANYWHERE, because 1,500 DC's cannot fit into 1,000 school places...

[PlasticLentilWeaver]

We weren't offered anything either. It was only my own hunting through neighbouring LEAs that found a place, my own LEA abdicated all responsibility. The fact that it was in special measures and we decided not to take the place is neither here nor there, the LEA simply couldn't be bothered to do their job and just said there were no places.

[Mirage]

All the county primary schools around us were full up this year.Even the one which had less than 10 pupils, had a full reception class this year.The lady next door but one to me failed to get her DD into the village school and tried every primary within a 10 mile radius,and there was not one space.

[MerryCouthyMows]

Out of curiosity, if an area really HASN'T got a school place for a child, what happens to that child?

Surely the LA has to do something? Do they provide a tutor? Do they force a school to take an additional pupil over the ICS regs?

If they do nothing, what happens when that child is still not in school after their 5th birthday? What happens if it gets to halfway through Reception year and they still haven't got a school place? Do the parents then get the EWO sent out because their DC is still not in school?

What about if it gets to halfway through Y1 and the DC is still not in school?

Has that happened? Where a parent is unable or unwilling to HE the DC, for whatever reason, maybe low educational level themselves, or they are out at work, unable to travel to the neighbouring area due to lack of transport, or simply because it was always their intention to send the DC to school, and the DC is still not in school?

Do they get in trouble for not providing their school age DC with a suitable education? Surely that would be breaking the Education Act that states that every child should be receiving some form of education by the term after their 5th Birthday?

Surely in that case, the parent has a case against the LA for forcing them to HE against their wishes?

Confused about the eventual outcome...

[MerryCouthyMows]

And I'm concerned about this given the fact that they year DS3 is due to start school, there will be a shortage of 157 places in the North end of my town (where I am), and a shortage of 22 places in the South side of my town (which is inaccessible from the North side by public transport in rush hour, at least not to be ON TIME for school start...)

Worried that as DS3 has no sibling link, we are already outside the last catchment area for ANY Primary in our area (black spot), and he won't have a sibling link as DS2 will have left by the time he starts, that it will be DS3 left without a school place.

And that will be complicated by his medical needs.

And compounded by his other SN's.



If not, we are probably going to be in the situation where DS3 ends up with NO place at all...

[RubyGates]

As for providing a tutor, no, I don't think they do.
There are/is herds a large number of school age children visible every day in our part of the world shopping with their parents/hanging out in the local cafes.

I know a family of three girls, the oldest of whom (7) didn't get a school place for about 6 months after the family moved into the area.

They are not HE, they are, in the main, families who have moved into the area without any research simply because they have an appropriate ethnic/cultural support network here, without realising that the area is already stuffed with small chlildren and that the local council DON' T have any more capacity for school places. (And I've been on the receiving end of more than one unpeasant barrage from an outraged parent about this).

The local surestarts/children's centres are having to provide extra sessions for their younger siblings whilst simultaneously having their budgets cut.