20 July 2010
Schools’ struggles to meet the growing demand for places will be exacerbated by the decision to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme, education leaders warned today.
Senior teachers, education managers and union officials were speaking at a Westminster Education Forum on schools post-BSF. They said that Education Secretary Michael Gove’s controversial decision to axe the BSF programme – combined with the threat of funding cuts – could have serious consequences on primary and secondary school places.
Figures released by the Department for Education last month showed that the number of primary school age children is expected to increase from 3.96 million now to 4.5 million in 2018 – a rise of 14%. Although the DfE claims there is a current surplus of secondary school places, it acknowledges that there will not be enough to cater for the increase in entrants based on the primary school projections.
Malcolm Smith, executive director of regeneration at the London Borough of Lewisham, said the BSF had included provision for the increase in demand. Lewisham had taken 18 new primary school classes, some of which were housed in temporary buildings. ‘Unless there is an increase in funding, there will need to be a compromise on open space provision. Next year, we will have to go through all this again. This is a massive problem, especially in inner-city areas.’
Ian Moore, a school buildings consultant at Bryanston Square Consulting, said that with the cuts in funding: ‘We will have to change the way we think about education… We cannot continue with schools that start at 8am and finish at 3pm.’
Gove has commissioned a review into school capital spending. Its terms of reference state it will ‘consider how to generate sufficient places to allow new providers to enter the state school system in response to parental demand’.
Speakers at the forum also expressed concerns about where the government would find funding for ‘free schools’ – institutions set up by parents and other providers and outside the control of local authorities.
Gillian Kelly, deputy head teacher of Nailsea school in Avon, said the source of this funding ‘fills me with dread’. Bob Johnson, a national official at the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, said this would be done at the expense of other schools.
Moore said that, if free schools were to cater for increased capacity, then they should be welcomed. However, he added, it looks as though they will replace failing schools. If this is the case, he asked, ‘Why not invest in the existing schools?’
