Locally East Dulwich councillors have been working to solve the Primary school reception places gap. By September 2016 the gap would have risen to 215-235 reception places. We’ve supported one free school that’s opened by finding a site for it and provided the evidence and sugested sites for another two free schools. Together they should provide 170 of the required places and Southwark Council are providing another 45 useful places for our area.

But after primary school where will these extra children go – surely we need more secondary school places?

Council officials tell us not. But they plan secondary school places on a borough wide basis. But most families think much more locally than that.

To test the numbers the Lib Dem leader asked the Labour council leader about school places  (page 19 second paragraph). If you ignore the political ping pong he stated “The forecasts show continuing demand for secondary places and suggest that in the medium term from 2016 additional secondary places may be needed in the borough.”

These jigsaw pieces say we need a new secondary school in the Dulwich area from September 2016.

This date is useful because the East Dulwich Harris Boys Academy will have had two sets of GCSE result by then and should be even more popular with the anticipated results. So it wouldnt suffer from a new local school.

Where and what?

Residents don’t need another single sex school because we now have one of each . So a new school would need to be co-ed.

The Dulwich Hospital site is the only Dulwich land with sufficient space for a secondary school. A secondary school would there would still leave space for the proposed primary school and proposed medical facilities.

So which provider?