Agenda item
School places update
A verbal update will be provided to the committee.
Minutes:
Councillor Arnold (Lead Member for Children and Families) provided an update to the committee on the current position regarding school places. A supporting document was tabled for the committee's consideration.
Councillor Arnold advised that 4900 applications had been received for Reception Places from September 2011 and of these, 632 applications had been received from outside of the borough. Of the 4268 applications from Brent residents, 625 applications had been received after the closing date of 15 January 2011. Despite the 260 additional reception year places created since September 2011, there remained as of 7 December 2011, 210 unplaced children for reception year. At this time, there were 58 vacancies across the system for this year group. A further 60 places would be made available in January 2012. All vacancies had been offered to those children without a school place but these had not been accepted due to parental preference regarding the school or location of the school. With regard to 11+ transfers for 2011, Councillor Arnold confirmed that there were sufficient places to meet demand.
Councillor Arnold informed the committee that for primary aged pupils, the only year groups with sufficient vacancies were the current years 5 and 6. To address this, the council would be opening additional classes in schools for year groups other than reception year and would establish projects to provide education to out of school primary pupils in January 2012 using the newly vacant Ashley Gardens Early Learning Centre and the Pavilion. Turning to the subject of out of school secondary aged children, Councillor Arnold drew the committee’s attention to the table set out in the supporting document and noted that as of 2 December 2011, there were 192 unplaced secondary school aged children. The majority of these pupils were new arrivals who would be placed in projects, schools or college courses within the following weeks.
During the subsequent discussion, members raised several issues. Councillor Hirani noted the number of late applications received and queried whether there were lessons to be learnt by the Council. Councillor Arnold advised that many of these applications were late as the families in question had recently arrived in Brent or had moved to a new location within Brent. The number of new arrivals to Brent each month was significant and in August and September 2011 over 100 new arrivals had been recorded. Councillor Hirani further queried whether the local authority should have been better prepared to meet the challenges posed by the demographic changes to the borough. Councillor Arnold advised that whilst the arrivals of new families could not be predicted, the tracking of related data enabled trends to be identified and the factors behind such changes to be better understood. With regard to predicted changes in birth rate, these figures were obtained from the LGA.All London councils were struggling to meet the same challenges as Brent. Brent was currently engaged in lobbying central government regarding the severity of these challenges. In response to a further query it was noted that immigration had increased in recent years and that due to Brent’s diverse population many new arrivals to the country had a connection with Brent.
Mr A Frederick noted that the committee had been informed at its previous meeting that Wembley High School and Capital City Academy had expressed interest in becoming all-through schools. He queried whether, in view of the number of unplaced school children in Brent, any further schools had expressed an interest in this option. Councillor Arnold advised that Preston Manor was currently an all-through school and highlighted that the council’s school places strategy included reference to such options. £25m of capital funding had been obtained from central government and this would be used towards the £52m required to meet the predicted school places shortfall for 2014/15.
Councillor Ashraf queried what support was provided to out of school pupils. Councillor Arnold advised that some children received educational support at home but that the focus remained on matching and placing children in a school as soon as possible. Sue Gates (Head of Integrated and Extended Services) added that some nursery places were maintained for unplaced reception year pupils.
RESOLVED: -
That the report be noted.