helenholden

Hi mrs.lotte - this is good to hear of little impact to our little ones, how this impacts on sibblings to your school and admissions for next year..one can only hope this is accounted for. unfortunately we have no knowledge as yet as to how our school will react to next years expectations - as with all schools in our area we will just have to react to where the demand falls, all we do know is that our school does have capacity in terms of space for some years but how it copes with the demand internally we will have to experience this and 'time will only tell' mentality. It could well be that next year it will experience another four form entry - if the needs are required than space will allow - already we know that the nursery is being moved from the confined area of where the reception children are to the year one area of the school which i feel again is wrong because i feel the nursery should be kept close to reception for these little ones to embrace children of similar ages and make their transition through the school holistic of their natural needs.

Buggie: it pains me to think 269 children in this local authority do not have a place for september. i feel for every child and parent that are experiencing this - what i do have a problem with is schools being notified in no time to consider the needs of all these children. Which, our school has told us it only had five days notice before it then notified the parents on 16th july..every child deserves the RIGHT to start their school experience where the quality of their learning experience is not questioned. Saffron: you are completely right - we need to challenge the council not the schools. The schools are trying to eleveate the problems that councils had full knowledge of and free schools unless aligned to the local needs are not deemed the answer. Free schools can only exist if parents are prepared to create funding, give up their day jobs and become fully committed to the future of a school (with a lot of cases of having no history in school environments) - alot of these schools are 'bespoke' in their offering and this will include their own admissions criteria which can be as little as eight children per year group..which will not align to the growing issues we are faced with.

I am aware of the crisis in london as i said earlier - my child is due to start school in september, we only received notice of the bulge a few days ago - i excepted a place for my daughter with an already big intake of 90 reception children. Two days ago i learn it is now four form i.e 120 children. My question is - can the council/school actually do this? no one seems to have challenged them? Tomskip if you didn't receive a letter can i ask why didn't you question this action? in reponse to DJQ - Lewisham need not necessarily build new schools, they need to simply make schools from the sites they own or turn disused sites into schools. Instead they turn them into housing. It's far easier. The burden will continue all the time we don't challenge our council.

Hi Tom - thank you for your response..i guess if you know it's happening in advance you can make a decision - I have my first child at kilmorie who joined last sept when they went up to a three form entry so for my second i excepted this as protocall as we were told by kilmorie they will increase by a three form year on year but only two days ago they said it will be four form and i don't think a letter to tell us of this is right - i think a meeting to share their knowledge on how this will not impact on the quality of the learning environment for our children. I know only too well of the problems this borough has with too many homes being built and not enough resources. Further more i have personal experience as i was part of a group of parents trying to set up a free school - to which was another government initiative that had no logic - so yes i am fully aware of the need for schools. The site we found which was a former school owned by lewisham council we were told we couldn't have because they had just sold it to building developers and this was almost a year and a half ago. If you could send me the thread to the family room i'd like to see what parents are saying. many thanks

I am a parent of kilmorie Primary school that received a letter in the middle of last week(16th July)revealing the schools plans for an additional intake of 30 children taking the reception class up to 120 children. As a parent i am deeply worried, concerned and upset about how the school has informed us (only this letter no plans for a meeting) and how ultimately my child is now signed up to this place and I have no say in this matter..can anyone please advise me as to what to do about this - is this actually legal? as when i had agreed to the place it was already an intake of 90, i did not sign up to an additional 30. If anyone can help me try and find a way of challenging this decision that effects the well being of a whole school I would really appreciate your time/comments. Many thanks in advance.

This is really interesting to hear as my children school in the borough of Lewisham and we were issued with a letter three days ago telling us that Kilmorie school will be expanding to a four form entry this september which is 120 new reception children. The schools super head Mark Wilson explained to me on friday they only found this out themselves last week - which i find very hard to believe and he said they had no choice in the matter. Last year Kilmorie expanded to a three form entry (90 children) which my eldest daughter attended. i had my concerns but the school explained in open discussion and meetings with the parents showing plans of expansion and it all seemed possible (Kilmorie is a big site and lewisham council were using the site but they were leaving the site to make the whole site available for children). Three of the schools that Mark wilson 'super heads' - Kilmorie, Fairlawn and Haseltine school are all bulging to make places available for the 269 children that didn't get a school space for this september. But the issue does not lie with our schools they lie with our councils. Lewisham would have know 5 years ago that this was going to be an issue and continue to be one. I think it's disgraceful that these people in council's can do this and think it's right to do this. Lewisham own enough land and property to build other schools and not pack kids into schools that don't have the capacity. These plans are just not thought out and our children's education and school experience will suffer greatly as a result. As parents we need to join forces and say we aren't excepting this and we will not vote those party's in that allow this to happen.