Issue - meetings

Purpose

To present the School Organisation suite of documents for approval.

Recommendation

That the Cabinet Member approves the suite of School Organisation documents, which underpin the Council's approach to ensuring sufficient school places in the city.

RECOMMENDATION

The Cabinet Member approved the suite of School Organisation documents, which underpin the council's approach to ensuring sufficient school places in the city.

The Deputy Director of Children, Families and Education introduced the report and highlighted the following areas that:

·      The Council had a statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for resident children. This duty required the council to forecast future pupil populations to ensure that sufficient places are provided and determine whether action was needed to meet anticipated future demand for school places for Portsmouth resident children.

·         The Council’s approach was documented in a suite of four key documents, each of which covered a 6-year period, but also looked forward to the longer term demand for places:

•     School Organisation Policy

•     Primary School Place Strategy

•     Secondary School Place Strategy

•     SEND Provision Place Strategy

·         The over-arching purpose of the four documents was to:

•     Commission additional school places to meet increasing demand

•     Prioritise the capital investment that is required to address sufficiency

•     Ensure the council meets it statutory duty of providing sufficient local school places for every child of school age whose parents/carers wish them to have one

•     Set out the council's policy on managing school organisation

The Cabinet Member welcomed the documents and said that they were a good balance between the vision and the principle of the service.

RECOMMENDATION

The Cabinet Member approved the suite of School Organisation documents, which underpin the council's approach to ensuring sufficient school places in the city.