Primary school expansion

A rising birth rate means that Coventry faces a challenge to ensure that every four year old is able to be offered a primary school place in Reception Year in the future.

As a result Coventry City Council has drawn up proposals to increase primary schools across the city and a public consultation exercise was held between 1 December 2009 and Monday, 25 January 2010.

The responses have been collated and analysed and a proposal to continue with the expansion of 16 primary schools in either September 2011 or September 2012 has been put forward. It is proposed that all schools will be extended through permanent buildings rather than modular or temporary accommodation.

What happens next?

Fourteen statutory notices regarding the plans to expand primary schools were published in March to allow further consultation. All 14 notices were subsequently approved by Coventry City Council's Cabinet on 15 June 2010.

Legal services informed governing bodies, the Church of England and Catholic Diocese of the decision and there is a four week window to appeal against this decision. This will end on 15 July 2010.

Any appeal would then be settled by an independent School Adjudicator towards the autumn of 2010.

Where will the money come from?

At the end of November 2009 the Department for Children, Schools and Families provided £7.4m of exceptional basic need funding to enable Coventry City Council to make available more permanent primary places.

This has enabled some of the previous proposals for modular buildings and reuse of a building beyond its useful life, to be replaced by permanent building extensions for September 2011.

The costs of work to the four voluntary aided schools and the capital funding required have yet to be determined. None of these schools require building works until September 2012 or later.

Why do we need to expand primary schools?

After many years of declining numbers, a growing birth-rate and plans to expand the city means Coventry faces a challenge in ensuring every child is offered a place at primary school.

The problem can already be seen by the fact that there were just 129 surplus places across all 85 city primary schools in Reception year in September 2009.

This pressure is set to increase as evidence – from the Coventry Primary Care Trust on birth rates and data collected from GP surgeries on the number of two year olds in the city – points that numbers are continuing to rise. If nothing is done, it is predicted there will be a deficit of 411 Reception places by September 2012.

Why has nothing been done about this before?

There are many variants that make forecasting school numbers difficult but we have predicted – and experienced – school numbers increasing for a few years now. Work has already gone into tackling this issue and will have seen 15 primary schools expanded by September 2010.

However, forecasts predict that the pressure on primary schools across the city will continue to grow meaning a larger expansion programme needs to be carried out if every school age child is to be offered a place at primary schools in Coventry in the future.

Further information

For more information about the plans to expand primary schools, please contact EducationPlanning@coventry.gov.uk.