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No more talk, let’s see action on school places
• NO school places for Camden children.
This headline appears in your paper every year as you report on families without a school place.
Why are we still reading about this situation in 2009? It is a fact that there have not been enough places for Camden children in primary and secondary schools, for many years. Usually it is the south of the borough that we hear about. However, there is now an acute shortage of primary school places in the north. This causes parents and children enormous stress.
Successive councils and their councillors have known about this problem for many years.
However, there is still no solution offered and, from what the New Journal has reported, many parents left the recent meeting about this very dissatisfied.
No schools have recently closed down in the borough, so we can point to two areas that have exacerbated the situation enormously.
One is the amount of new-build family accommodation in Camden.
The second is that many faith schools changed their admission criteria and this excluded many children local to that school from applying.
Fact: Camden is a popular area and families want to move here.
Fact: the more you build, the more children that require school places.
Fact: the situation continues to worsen to the detriment of families with school age children.
I am not saying stop building; I am saying that these problems are foreseeable and have to be taken into consideration when passing planning applications.
Councillors have just given permission for a 73-home family dwelling in the north of the borough and when this is built, the situation will become even worse.
Faith schools have been in the borough for decades. They offer a good education and parents want their children to have the best education possible. However, changing their admission criteria has led to many families being excluded from applying.
What is the solution? Long-term, a new primary school is needed. Short-term, five Portakabins need to be put in five local schools playgrounds.
This is an emergency and faith schools have to play their part in this.
This is about children’s education and every school has a duty to educate.
Now no more talking, let us see some action.
DF Gowers
Broxwood Way NW8
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