Showing posts with label Primary School Expansion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Primary School Expansion. Show all posts

Sunday 21 December 2014

School place vacancies and waiting lists in Brent

School Census Day in October gives a snapshot of the current position regarding school places in Brent. The actual figures change constantly as places are taken up. Brent Council adopted a School Places Strategy recently that includes the aim of having spare capacity in each school to aid parent choice.

This has an impact on schools faced with competition from a populat neighbour.  Pupil 'churn' occurs when a child leaves a school to take up a place at their preferred school where had been on the waiting list. These children are often replaced by children new to the country, sometimes without previous schooling, who present a challenge to teachers.  Such children usually do extremely well in the long-term, aided by the expertise Brent teachers have developed in this area, but as one would expect there is a short-term impact on SAT results. Continuous 'churn' can have a destabilising effect.

Ark Academy Primary had 208 children on its Reception waiting list on Census Day. I predicted that all-though schools would have an impact on neighbouring primary schools when Ark was set up - parents are effectively choosing their child's secondary school when their children are four years old. It is of course easier for large families if all their children are in one school.

However Ark's waiting list is sharply reduced to 21 in Year 1 and 10 in Year 2 when children settle into their schools.

Recently expanded Harlesden Primary and Strathcona - Roe Green, had vacancies in their Reception classes on Census Day as did Carlton Vale Infants and Furness Primary.  Byron Court, which is currently consulting on expansion to five forms of entry had 7 reception vacancies but a waiting list of 18.

Across the borough and age groups there were 153 pupils not in school with the highest number in Alperton ward (33) and Wembley Central (21) with Year 6 children the largest group in each.

The secondary data shows a sharp divide between schools


The waiting lists appear high but these are children in school who would prefer another - not children out of school. In fact the ward data shows no Year 7 child out of school and  only 2 year 8s.

Three secondary free schools were due to open in Brent in September but only Michaela managed to do so. The DfE estates department failed to find Gladstone and Gateway sites but the data shows that they were not necessary in terms of pupils numbers although they may be in terms of parental choice, however there is no clear data on that.

Gladstone School accounts to the end of December 2013 showed an income of £190,056, expenditure of £77,218 and a carry forward of £112,838 - for a school with no pupils or premises.

The full details are in the Excel spreadsheet below:


Wednesday 18 April 2012

More primary schools to get bigger

The Brent Executive is will approve the expansion of three Brent Primary schools on Monday.

Barham Primary in Wembley will expand one form of entry, moving from a total of 630 pupils Reception to Year 6 to 840 at a cost of £4.8m.

Fryent Primary in Kingsbury  will double in size from 420 to 840 pupils at a cost of £8.3m

Michell Brook Primary in Neasden will expand from 420 places to 630 at a cost of £3.8m

Brent Council says all three are 'popular and high performing schools'.

A decision on the expansion of Furness in Harlesden has been postponed until a new headteacher has been appointed.

It is not clear from the documentation whether the amount of outdoor play space has been reduced as a result, noting only that it has been 'reconfigured'.


Tuesday 31 January 2012

One Brent Primary to double in size and two others will expand

Brent Council is currently consulting on further changes in the size of primary schools as well as changes to the character of others.

Three primary schools are due to expand with Fryent Primary, in Church Lane, Kingsbury doubling in size. New children would be taken in year by year from January 2013 with the maximum size reached by September 2018:

School
Nursery
Current 4-11
(R-Year 6)
Additional
 4-11
Total 4-11
by Sept 2018
90 PT
630
210
840
54 PT
420
420
840
30 FT
420
210
630

The name of each school above is linked to the  appropriate consultation document. Consultation closes on February 15th 2012

I have argued here and in the local press that we should think very carefully before making such large primary schools. On the plus side there are economies of scale and the ability to employ a wide range of specialists and run a comprehensive  extended schools programme. However the negatives include the family atmosphere of a small school, the headteacher knowing families well, and children feeling safe and comfortable in a smaller unit. There are particular concerns about very young children and those with special education, emotional or behavioural needs. Additional numbers can also lead to the loss of playground and playing field space, school libraries and IT suites. School halls can no longer accommodate all the children in one inclusive assembly or school performance.

Building new one or two form entry primary schools is not proposed although this is an option favoured by many parents and teachers. Mention has been made of a possible new primary in Fulton Way, Wembley but no firm proposals have been put forward.

Brent Council is also consulting on a change of character for Alperton High School. The document can be accessed HERE Consultation closes on February 24th, 2012. It is proposed that Additional Resource Provision (ARP) for up to 20  school students with statements for Moderate Learning Difficulties should be opened at the lower school site in Ealing Road. The building would serve as their base but they would spend some time in the mainstream school. The provision would be for pupils with low incidence and complex needs some needs which are currently met in special school provision.

Brent Council is proposing to change the character of Vernon House Special School, Drury Way, London, NW10 0NQ, from a 30 place special school for pupils with Behaviour, Emotional, Social Difficulties (BESD) to a 35 place special school for pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD for those pupils capable of accessing the mainstream curriculum with specialist support) and Children with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD) from September 2012. They claim that the change to a broader designation will increase the flexibility of the school to admit pupils with a broader range of associated needs.

The school in January 2012 had only 14 pupils on roll and in 2010-11 had an occupancy rate of 45-60%. At the same time there has been an increase in the demand for special school places for children on the autistic spectrum. There is likely to be a debate about whether such children might better benefit being in a mainstream setting with support. The consultation closed on February 24th 2012 LINK


Friday 16 September 2011

Primary expansion programme hit by delays

Brent's primary school expansion programme has had a patchy start this month. Preston Manor Primary School is not yet ready and will not be completed until half-term. Places have been offered instead at the temporary building in Ashley Gardens and the children will transfer later. Not the best start for young children settling into school for the first time.

Building work at Brentfield Primary which is expanding has been disrupted because asbestos has been found resulting in part of the building being cordoned off. It is reported that some parents have temporarily removed their children from the school because they fear for their safety.

Brent personnel are dealing with the issue as a priority and there may be an impact on the timetable for completion of some of the 'bulge' classes being installed for the children currently without a school place.

Although the asbestos find is a one off, the problems do draw attention to the impact of cuts on Council services. School building works used to be managed by the Asset Management department of Children and Families  but to increase efficiency this was merged with other council departments to create the Major Projects and Regeneration Department. However at the same time a number of posts were deleted and key staff were lost from the Asset Management department. Insiders report that although the merger has resulted in a more coherent strategy that staff are considerably over-stretched due to the large number of projects underway.  Time pressures on the provision of more school places and the variety and number of the projects undertaken means that when something goes wrong it has a knock-on effect.

It would be interesting to know if the savings made by the staffing reduction have been exceeded by the additional costs of delayed projects. The social cost of children not attending school whilst hard to express in financial terms must also be taken into account.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Urgent short-term solutions put forward for school places crisis

Children out of school - click image to enlarge  
The Brent Executive will be considering further expansions of primary schools at their meeting on April11th and the report they will consider contains an unprecedented delegation of decision making on sums above £1m to the Director of Regeneration and Major Projects due to the urgency of the situation.

The map above shows the distribution of need for September 2011, although an important caveat is that the smiley faces do not indicate a 1 to 1 relationship and that positioning is only approximate.  The actual numbers for March 2011 are in the last two columns below
Click on image to enlarge
Regular readers will know that I have long been pressing for a borough-wide long-term strategy to address the problem rather than the ad-hoc approach of the last few years. The report says the council is developing a four year medium-term strategy which should be presented in the next two months, but this will not be in time for the September 2011-August 2012 school year. They say there are several options being considered to increase capacity without compromising educational outcomes.

These include:
  • All-through schools (5-19 yr olds) - no educational discussion has yet take place on this despite the council's approval of Preston Manor's conversion into an all-through school and ARK's development into an all-through school.
  • Five form entry primary schools (which would give a primary school of 1,050 pupils - larger than many secondary schools in the rest of the country)
  • Larger classes with 'qualifying measures' to take account og legislation. This will ring alarm bells for headteachers, teachers and parents.
Such measures would require a thorough-going public educational debate - not one just based on the urgency of the school places crisis.

As an interim measure the report puts forward plans to expand eight schools on a temporary basis.  'Bulge' classes are an additional class added to a school on a one-off basis. It progresses through the school as an additional class of usually 30 children in that particular cohort and suitable accommodation has to be found as the children get older. In contrast a one form entry expansion eventually requires space for 7 classes of 30.

After assessing the risks attached to the possible expansion of 14 schools, including Capital City Academy and Wembley High taking primary classes, the report lists eight schools which it intends to temporarily expand:
Click  on image to enlarge