Agenda item

Members will receive a presentation on the draft school places strategy.

Sara Williams (Operational Director – Early Help and Education, Children and Young People) gave a presentation on the draft school places strategy.  She began by stating that consultation on the strategy had started in March 2014. The strategy needed to take into account a number of challenges that the borough faced, such as the rise in demand for school places, including a 38% increase in under five year olds in the last ten years, increasing population density and limited supply of land and changing composition of the borough.  Members noted the aspirations for Brent schools and school expansion would only take place with good or outstanding schools where leadership was secure.  The council was to establish a joint body with schools to oversee school place planning and school organisation.  An initiative in helping pupils stay close to home was also proposed both for primary and secondary schools.  Admission policies for secondary schools were to be reconsidered and the creation of free schools would also help reduce pressure on school places.  There would also be efforts made to ensure the community benefitted from school facilities and there would be better consultation and engagement with local communities on new schemes, building inclusive provision into expansion of new schools and improve accessibility for all pupils, especially at secondary level.  Sara Williams added that better contingency arrangements would also be in place, such as early opening of classes in expanded primary schools rather than ‘filling from the bottom’ and keeping temporary accommodation modules on standby.  Members noted the projections and demand for both primary and secondary schools.

During members’ discussion, it was enquired if there were currently any children living in the borough who did not have a school place and how was performance compared to the previous year.  In noting the ambitiousness of the Schools Capital Programme, it was asked whether achieving its targets were realistic.  In respect of helping pupils to stay close to home, a member asked if a limit on distance had been determined as to when it would become unacceptable.  The member felt that details of pupils’ distance from their home to school should be closely monitored and situations where parents were having to coordinate transport of pupils to different schools should be an exception, particularly if they had made their applications on time.  Another member suggested that it would be useful to receive figures regarding pupil distance from the school they attended.  In addition, details of pupil access to the schools should also be included, as for example, if a pupil needed to get two buses to school as this would impact upon the time taken and also on the family’s finances.  She added that a report providing more details would have been beneficial and allowed members to properly scrutinise the matter.  Another member, whilst appreciating the opportunity the presentation gave for pre-scrutiny prior to a report going to Cabinet, enquired whether officers were confident that primary schools could maintain educational standards as they got larger.  She also asked whether placing Special Educational Needs (SEN) pupils was relatively trouble free.  A question was raised as to whether schools in the north of the borough were taking more pupils than those in the south and where could details be found of pupil numbers throughout the borough.  Another member asked whether school expansion posed risks in terms of whether there was sufficient infrastructure in place. 

Councillor Hector then addressed the committee.  Councillor Hector referred to an example she was aware of in her ward where a pupil with a disability and with social and medical needs who had been refused admission to his nearest school probably on the basis that his faith was different to the school’s.  She felt that this was unfair given the circumstances and sought comments on this.

In reply to the issues raised, Sara Williams confirmed that presently there no children without school places, however years 5 and 6 were extremely full.  She advised that the placing of pupils this year had been an improvement from the previous two years and added that it was important that all pupils were placed by 3 October as this was when the school census figures were taken.  She felt that the Capital Schools Programme was achievable financially, although there were some logistical challenges to overcome.  Additional reception classes were being established ahead of the rest of the Capital Schools Programme in order to accommodate any subsequent slippage in delivering the programme.  Sara Williams added that quality and value for money of additional school buildings was a London-wide issue and the importance of the procurement exercise in securing these was emphasised.  The committee noted that ‘close to home’ guidelines had outlined that pupils up to and including eight year olds schools should be less than two miles from their homes, and above eight year olds should be less than three miles.  In reality, most pupils lived considerably closer than these distances and Sara Williams acknowledged that it was impractical for parents to be expected to take one child to one school, then another child in a completely different direction to another school and the Fair Access Protocol would be applied to address this.  She stated that pupils would be placed in their nearest schools at reception class level, although this may be more difficult to achieve for in-year applications.

Sara Williams advised that primary schools were becoming larger both at London and national level, however the most important factors in ensuring quality education were good leadership and management.  In addition, larger primary schools were able to resource subjects such as foreign languages, be more financially resilient and offer a greater career structure for teachers.  In respect of SEN pupils, Sara Williams emphasised the importance of ensuring they were given the right provision and providing this in existing schools had been successful.  The number of SEN pupils going to non-Brent schools had fallen significantly in recent years and this had reduced the strain on the SEN budget.  Sara Williams advised that there was a larger demand for pupil places in the north of the borough, including a number of ‘hotspots’ such as Wembley, Kingsbury and Queensbury and along the Cricklewood corridor.  As such, it was likely that there would be more pupils coming from the north of the borough to schools in the south, however schools were being expanded across the whole borough.  The committee noted that the October school census would show where pupils were located.  Sara Williams informed members that checks were undertaken to ensure there was the sufficient infrastructure where permanent expansion was planned and that in this respect, Brent schools were faring better than a number of other London boroughs.  Sara Williams stated that she was aware of the case that Councillor Hector had referred to and stated that such situation were rare, however voluntary aided schools had their own admissions criteria.

Christine Gilbert (Chief Executive) advised that a report on the draft school places strategy was due to go to Cabinet on 13 October.  However, it was felt that providing the Scrutiny Committee with a presentation on the item prior to the publication of the Cabinet report would be useful for members and allow them to undertake pre-scrutiny of a Cabinet item and provide views and feedback to Cabinet. 

The Chair concluded discussion by acknowledging the large interest from members and other councillors on this item and in noting the improvement in placing pupils in the last two years.  However, he emphasised the need to sustain progress and requested that school places be considered at a Scrutiny Committee meeting in around two months’ time.