Enough school places?

[Andrew_C]

BBC report on the looming shortfall, and the Govt response.

[elsiegee40]

There is a problem. Certainly in Kent where we have been through a huge population dip which bottomed out with the September 2015 intake.

 

Some schools have closed, some are struggling to stay open as numbers are not sustainable and most have had to cut back hard as funding bites.

 

As numbers rise and funding doesn't... and of course schools are paid according to the previous year's intake... it is going to cause further hardship.

[localzuk]

I love the government response. Basically "its fiiine, nothing to see here".

 

If no sponsors come forward when a council wants to open a new school, what then? They can't open their own school, so what can the council do to increase spaces?

[elsiegee40]

The problem is also that there is no funding to support schools at the point of closure so that they can stay open until the population rises to fill the places that are already there.

 

Surely it is more expensive to close a school and then have to open another in a few years time than to support the school through 3 or 4 years of difficulty

[CAM]

I'm already wondering how existing schools will cope with the lack of teaching staff. Especially when the few remaining LA schools find themselves forced to increase form intake which will require more staff.

 

I guess the government figure free schools will be the answer.

[elsiegee40]

Almost all the secondaries in Kent are academies. The grammars are mostly full and taking extra forms of entry. The secondary moderns are empty, but will be bulging at the seams if they survive that long.

 

They want to stay open. They want to educate the kids that really aren't suited to a grammar education whatever their parents and the local authority think. You can't set a deficit budget for a school, and as an academy, you cannot run the business at a loss... the government has a lot to answer for and should not be blaming academies for having to make economic decisions

[mthomas08]

I love the government response. Basically "its fiiine, nothing to see here".

 

If no sponsors come forward when a council wants to open a new school, what then? They can't open their own school, so what can the council do to increase spaces?

 

This made me laugh, good point though

 

It is always interesting to see the Government react in such a way "Schools are not having budgets cut", no they are getting the exact same amount of money this year when compared to last... (they are just taking on another 250 Students extra, which requires more Staff)....

 

It's always bleak times ahead as @elsiegee40 said, we are aware of some Schools in our area that are struggling, I know one that closed just 15 mins away, some have been taken over (emergency measures)... luckily we are in a very good position on intake. We are maxed out, in fact we have almost 3 times the applicants who want to join us.

 

Our HT and BM are working hard to squeeze budgets, it's also why we are hammering on printing (among a lot) because if you are spending 50K a year, that's a lot of money over 3 Years just on printing. When it comes to any new ideas/tech, the case has to be hard fought. It's no longer "Look at this, buy it in 24 hours".

 

To be fair to the Government, Schools have not exactly been careful with spending (that I have seen).

Edited February 29, 2016 by mthomas08

[sparkeh]

Primary's have been struggling with this for years, same response from Government "Everything is ok and the system is working".

A few years ago a primary in our local group was closed, despite the other heads protesting loudly that it would cause huge issues. No one listened and it was shut and knocked down. Guess what, we had huge issue with getting pupils into school which resulted in the LA funding transport to ship pupils to other areas. And now there is going to be an academy opening on the old school site. Sheer madness!

[sted]

Primary's have been struggling with this for years, same response from Government "Everything is ok and the system is working".

A few years ago a primary in our local group was closed, despite the other heads protesting loudly that it would cause huge issues. No one listened and it was shut and knocked down. Guess what, we had huge issue with getting pupils into school which resulted in the LA funding transport to ship pupils to other areas. And now there is going to be an academy opening on the old school site. Sheer madness!

 

it depends what you think hm loonies are trying to do. They want as far as can see to wash their hands of education entirely so rich donors can make money from it and they can just set policies and lay the blame elsewhere when todays daft idea fails

[Love_Sausage]

Our LA jumped on the dip in numbers a few years back as an opportunity to close as many sites as it could to fix the budgets around the time. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that this would happen. We're going to go full circle in a remarkably short space of time and have LA's opening schools again as no academy chains are interested in expanding.

[Mark182]

We find out what school my son gets into tomorrow. I really hope it's the one we want!