School places in booming baby crisis

6:00pm Monday 1st December 2008

Comments (2)   Have your say »

SOUTHEND is facing a school admissions crisis caused by a baby boom. The town has seen a significant rise in the number of babies born over the past two years, forcing Southend Council to look at urgent measures to create new school places.

Building a new school and transporting children from their home to undersubscribed schools across the town were considered, but later ruled out.

The council believes the solution is to add extra teaching space and increase admissions limits to a handful of schools in the hope of accommodating those new pupils.

Critics, however, say the move will mean schools, many of which are more than 50 years old, would be too cramped to provide pupils with acceptable environments in which to learn.

Porters Grange Primary School, in Southend, has an admissions limit of 80. That will be reduced to 60 in 2010/11, but then increased to 90 for two academic years after that.

Ros Ferdinand, headteacher, said: “We object to any plans to increase pupil numbers at our school.

“We just do not have the space. The school governors agree and we have put our objections to the council over this.

“If we have to take the number of children on the planned admission we just could not get them in.

“We have written to the council admissions department and told them there is no space here. The council has just ignored our objections every time. It has told us these extra children have to go somewhere.

“We have measured the school and there is just not the room on this site for more children. To say we have limited space here would be an understatement.”

Other schools have welcomed the plans and the chance to expand with new buildings and facilities.

Frank Gulley, head at Temple Sutton Primary School, in Eastern Avenue, said: “New buildings would be very welcome because we would then have more modern facilities and could upgrade parts of the school.

“We have seen the feasibility study for the work and it all looks good. We are very lucky because we have lots of space here, and we are very much looking forward to expanding the school.”

He shrugged off suggestions that taking more children would cause problems, and highlighted the benefits the plan would bring to Temple Sutton pupils. He said: “This will probably decrease class sizes because we will have more space for the children. We already have four classes in some year groups so having four classes for the new intake won’t be anything new.

“The number of children we have decides how much funding we have, so the more children we have the more resources we will have for the school.

“The way we organise the school is very supportive for all the staff and pupils. It’s a nice way to work.

“We have a very successful school and were rated as outstanding in our last Ofsted inspection.”

The council’s recommendations were approved by cabinet councillors in early October.

It was decided to expand existing schools because building one or more new schools by 2011 would be too difficult. The council does not have any land or finances in place for such developments. Building new schools in the area, from 2013, has not been ruled out, however, and this option will be reconsidered if birth rates continue to rise.

Mr Gulley agrees with this decision. He said: “There is hardly any space in Southend to put a new school. There certainly wouldn’t be space in this area to put a new school.”

The problem caused by the rising birth rate is compounded by the fact the greatest increase has occurred in central Southend and the western part of the town.

However, most spare class places will be in schools in the Eastwood and Shoebury area.

A potential solution to this would be to provide buses to transport children to schools with spare places, but this was also rejected because it would be unpopular both with parents and the schools accepting pupils from outside their catchment area.

The move would also have a cost implication for the already stretched school transport budget.

The council accepts the plan to increase admissions at schools will make life more difficult for staff, and will also cause problems with class organisation.

Even though some schools have accepted higher pupil numbers in the past, much of the extra space used previously has now been set aside for work to support vulnerable children.

The report, published earlier this month, also states extra support will be offered to the schools which will be affected to ensure educational standards do not slip.