Issue - meetings

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the progress of:

·     Urgent school condition projects

·     School place update and School sufficiency schemes aimed at increasing school place capacity within the city

RECOMMENDED

(1)   That the Cabinet Member notes the progress on the school modernisation "urgent condition" projects, the secondary school sufficiency projects and the special school sufficiency projects.

(2)  It is recommended that the schemes agreed with the Lead Member since the last report are formally approved.

The report was introduced by Chris Williams, Pupil Place Planning and Capital Strategy Manager.

In response to questions officers clarified the following:

Officers try to plan school places as much as possible to meet the needs of the year 6 pupils as they come through into secondary school; these are based on secondary school catchments.   There are occasions where school places get very tight and there are limitations on the number of pupils that can be accommodated on site.  Officers try to plan the provision widely across the city to accommodate the numbers where possible.  In the past officers have planned on the basis of permanent numbers however the projects currently being planned are more on a temporary basis, as the likelihood is that the secondary numbers will eventually drop, based on the current forecast in primary provision. 

Officers work very closely with the Admissions Team on the provision of school places.  Currently the school places are becoming tight in the secondary sector and a number of schools are already full.  Generally places will be filled to the published admission number (PAN), working closely with the school and admissions which keeps the process fair when allocations are made. The Inclusion Support Panel Processes are set up to ensure that schools collectively provide for the children who need a change of school.

The Cliffdale expansion is a four phased expansion programme, which is currently on phase one.  Officers are currently looking for accommodation to move the family centre from that site.  As soon as officers have some alternative options they will report back to members. 

With regard to the number of starting school applications being below the forecast number at starting school age, officers had been in discussions with all schools where the largest numbers have not appeared.  Some have chosen to continue operating with the same forms of entry but with less pupils in each class.  The local authority are having discussions with them about options going forward and whether to lower their PAN in the future.  Financially there will be an impact going forward for the schools if they chose to operate under their existing models whilst running with surplus accommodation. 

Officers said they could explore financial options available and it would be down to the Schools Forum as it would be using contingency within the Schools Forum.  There are no covid grants for schools that cover a drop in numbers.  The authority has given lots of advice and worked with early years settings to get the message out to parents about applying to schools.  It may just be down to general population changes that had not been predicted.  This will be revisited in September and the applying for schools places messaging will keep going throughout the summer.

Pupil numbers were falling so there was always going to be a surplus of school places across the city.  The authority would never remove the places where it was expected that many of the EAL pupils would return at some point.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18