12:10pm Monday 6th September 2010
By Jon Reeve
COUNCIL chiefs are set to commit £1m to create new primary school places to cope with a boom in the number of young children in Southampton.
Members of the city council cabinet were today due to debate proposals to accommodate 2,900 more pupils at city schools within the next eight years.
Councillors are being warned if the major expansion is not carried out Southampton’s schools will run out of space within two years, under the weight of increasing birth rates.
Up to 20 primary, infant and junior schools across the city could be expanded as part of the scheme, which is the second phase of a review of pre-secondary education in the city.
It comes just a year after the council announced £15m plans to add 1,000 new places at ten schools in the city centre and Freemantle areas, in a bid to cope with the rapidly growing number of children reaching school age.
The Cabinet is today expected to rubber stamp the allocation of £690,000 towards plans to allocate an extra 355 reception class places for September 2012.
The expansion is equivalent to adding almost 12 new 30-pupil classes, or the intake of six average-sized schools.
Proposals to build new schools to cope with the demand have been dismissed because of a lack of suitable locations and the slim chances of Government funding for any construction projects.
Although if the Cabinet agrees to progress the scheme it will only mean the start of a consultation process, a report going before councillors today argues the moves are essential.
Author Kevin Verdon wrote: “The demand for primary school places has been increasing in recent years and continues to do so.
“Without increasing the capacity of our primary schools we would not be able to accommodate all the pupils for whom we have a statutory duty to provide a school place.”
Head teachers have been visited to get their views, and council officers have visited all affected schools to study the viability of expansion or converting non-teaching areas into classrooms.
As well as the consultation plans, Cabinet members are today being asked to agree to fund an extra £310,000 for places already allocated at Foundry Lane Primary and St Mary’s CoE Primary schools, some of which will come from central Government grants.
n There are plans to create extra places at other schools, although there are a number of alternative options of how that might happen. They will see an additional 30 pupils in each year group at either St Mark’s CoE Primary OR Wordsworth Infant School, AND separately an extra 30 places at either Fairisle Infant and Junior schools, OR Oakwood Infant and Junior schools, OR Mansel Park Primary (in addition to those already part of the plans).
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