Last night a meeting of the councils Overview and Scurtiny Committee met at the East Dulwich Community Centre to discuss the problems parents faced with this years primary schools admissions process.
Disappointing that barely a handful of parents could attend plus a handful of headteachers and school governors. However, the room was full of councillors and council officers. Really thought provoking presentation from Terry Parkin the lead officer accountable for admissions. Lots of searching questions that brought out lots of other facts.
Some unfortunate weird comments and wild accusations from Cllr Aubyn Graham. He seemed very confused.
Main points I took from the scrutiny:
– Idea of having quite a few pre prepared buldge class options and then activating them depending on parent demand. This de risks any future pupil predictions being wrong while the economy is in such turmoil.
– More assurance that the GLA stats people now understand what went wrong this year after 15 years of unblemished near spot on pupil predictions.
– Amazing to hear that Southwark created an extra 45 reception places and still has 17% spares places in less fashionable schools such as the excellent Bessemer Grange. Lambeth and Lewisham had to create 150 extra emergency reception places each, Richmond 210, Enfield a whopping 22 classes totalling 660 reception places. This was shocking and really put into context how well Southwark had coped.
– £30M being pumped in Southwark Primary schools to physically make them better by Southwark Council and £25M from central government.
– Southwark schools close to being in top quartile for performance but time lag from when a schools performance soars to when publicly recognised for this.
– That across Southwark175 and in greater Dulwich area 22 kids go ‘missing’ each year. They just don’t show up at the schools places they’ve accepted. It costs the council £100,000 each year chasing these down to ensure they are in a school somewhere and are safe. What a waste caused by tiny number of selfish parents.
– That the admissions department has enough officers for a normal year but this abnormal year they were overwhelmed with worried parents. These officers will be increased by three as admissions numbers are bulging for the next 5-6 years.
If you’re an East Dulwich parent and couldn’t make it last night please do feed in your thoughts and observations.