The hugely stressful fight for a primary school place
Talk to the parents of any four-year-old round about this time of year and chances are all they can talk about is getting the “right” school. It becomes something of a parental obsession. But what if you can’t get any school, let alone the right one?
Today’s report from the National Audit Office is official confirmation of what many parents have known – or feared – for the last few years: the shortage of school places is reaching alarming levels. The report said one-in-five primary schools was full or near capacity with London accounting for more than a third of all extra places needed.
(Soaring birth rates since the 1950s have caused a schools places crisis in England)
The NAO says a quarter-of-a-million extra school places will be required in England by the autumn of next year.
And even Education Secretary Michael Gove, a politician renowned for his love of radical and speedy reforms, may struggle to conjure up a solution by then.
Whose fault is it?
Well, the past decade has seen the biggest 10-year increase in the birth rate since the 1950s. You can’t blame the politicians for that but both Labour and the Tories today have been trading blows on whose policies have most contributed to the problems.
Labour say the shortage of places has got worse since the coalition took power. The schools minister, David Laws, says the government is working to reverse the “idiotic policies” of the previous administration.
Back to the people who matter most in all this – the parents and the pupils.
Read more: Primary school places crisis triggered by baby boom
The reality for many will be a hugely stressful fight to get something that you might hope would be a given – a place at school where your child is safe, happy and being given the best possible education.
More wealthy parents will doubtless end up exercising the power that money gives, moving house to make sure they’re in the right catchment in an increasingly competitive environment, and those without that power, will just have to lump it as usual. Teachers say the reality may be parents faced with sending siblings to two or three different schools.
For many parents it’s further confirmation that successive government’s talk of choice in education is just that – talk.
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There are 5 comments on this post
Jackie,
This is what you get when you put in place a neocon society.
You also get tenth rate reactionaries like the ineffable Gove and the unspeakable Laws. Anybody who goes along with those two idiots deserves all the trouble they get. Meanwhile, the victims are the children and a rapidly fading future in a system of government that delivers only widespread unemployment, poverty and despair.
Setting parents against each is merely a tactic to divert attention away from the real causes.
In a few years time don’t be surprised to see Gove and Laws as “consultants” to private education profiteers, much the way you see Blair working for corrupt bankers J.P.Morgan. Nothing but bought-and-paid-for suited-up spivs the lot of them.
I’m sure Gove with all his “back to the future” so-called reforms could come up with an instant answer – defer schooling for all children of parents on benefits (other than the middle-class benefit for parents with children) and get them picking oakum or other menial tasks for the wealthy for a year or two.
“This is what you get when you put in place a neocon society.”
“neocon” is a foreign policy term which I do not see has a place in describing UK internal politics.
The problem is, UK state schools are of really poor quality. The teaching unions will resist attempts to remedy this as they are full of left-wing extremists who refuse to act against poor standards and poor teachers, due to ideology and vested interests.
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Also, Labour’s policies on increasing the amount of people going to university have had a corrosive effect on the quality of higher education. If you increase the supply of something, you diminish its value.
I don’t particularly like Michael Gove but I can see where he is coming from. And I say this as a Labour party member. Labour is weak on education policy and has been for years and years.
“If you increase the supply of something, you dimminish its value”.
You should be aware that this is a nonsense prediction. Are humans each less valuable now that there are 7 billion of us? Or computer chips and motor cars less useful because we have made so many of them? They’re certainly much cheaper in real terms. But inferior? I don’t suppose so.
What we know about human development is that careful nurturing greatly improves the problem solving, creative and learning skills of humans. Which is what we need to do for all children. Not just some of them.
If anyone knows the contact details of the lady who makes jewelry in Easterhouse I would like to buy some jewelry from her