This part of the meeting has a theme focusing on East Dulwich ward and will cover the following:
Education places – admissions policy, primary and secondary places ‘bulge classes’.
Reporting back on North Cross Road Market and what has been decided
To hear from local ward Councillors to highlight any local issues, support for community groups in their area.
Lordship Lane and Grove Vale – road safety issues.
Minutes:
Iain Johncock, Strategy Manager, Property from Children’s Services was present to highlight some of the issues concerning secondary and primary school places in the Dulwich Community Council area.
Most of the programmes under the Building Schools for the Future were in tact. Significant investment has already gone underway in Kingsdale and Charter Schools including Harris Academy for Boys.
The previous admissions process for primary places had a significant high number of late applications. There is now a one place application system which means a child would be offered one place which helped reduce the number of late applications.
Two thirds of applications were made online; this method means that a large majority of children are offered their first choice. Bulge classes have to be carefully judged and fully resourced. The officer stated that permanent works were completed at Goodrich and Heber Primary Schools. Also there is now an expanding school entry at Lyndhurst Primary School. An example of bulge classes is at Dulwich Hamlet.
Comments were expressed at the meeting about the above some of which included:
That bulge classes had to be fully addressed particularly with the oversubscription of schools in the South of the borough and some school admissions for example Langbourne Primary which is the closest primary school to Kingsdale, Charter and Harris Academy for Boys has no geographical admissions policy. In addition there needs to be a new process for Free Schools which are like academies.
The officer stated that bulge classes in Southwark was not uncommon as other parts of London are experiencing the same.
The chair thanked Iain Johncock for his presentation and for responding to questions.