Bristol school place fight due to take place next month with applications dramatically on the rise in the city

The annual Bristol school-place bun fight is due to take place next month.

Children born between 01 September 2006 and 31 August 2007, are able to start school this coming September.

The deadline for applications was put back to the 15 January this year.

Parents who made their applications on time, are anxiously waiting to hear if their child will get any of their three preferences.

When making an application for a school reception place, parents have the opportunity to indicate a preference for three specific schools, though a place at any of them is not guaranteed.

The letters offering places will be going into the post first class on 25 April 2011.

There has been a 15 per cent rise in the number of children needing reception places in Bristol schools.

The increase of school pupil numbers is expected to increase even further, leaving a shortfall of at least 3,000 primary school places by 2015 if new classes are not created.

Bristol City Council has published its School Organisation Strategy, setting out how it is to meet the demand for the predicted number of school applications over the next four years.

The city is not the only one to be experiencing a school population increase, but Bristol’s problem is that the increase has happened so rapidly.

The council put this down to rising birth rates in the city, fewer families moving out of Bristol, people moving into the city from within the UK and abroad and a decline in the number of applications to independent schools due to the recession.

An extra 355 school places for the last two years’ reception intake have been created by additional new classrooms and ‘improvements’ to existing school buildings.

Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Clare Campion-Smith, said: “We have been working very closely with schools to plan how we are going to meet the need for significant numbers of new primary school places. Given the size of the task and the restrictions of many school sites in the city, we are faced with a real challenge. Plans are now in place to create 1,331 new primary school places by September 2012, including new two-form-entry primary provision on the former St Ursula’s site.

“It is also very important that we plan for the medium to long term, ensuring that the right number of places and appropriate facilities are in place for children as they move through primary school and on to secondary school. This strategy considers the need for school places at all levels and will be regularly updated to take into account future population changes. We are looking at a range of options to secure new school places, including the potential to create primary places at the former Fairfield School site.”

Parents can see the full copy of the School Organisation Strategy on the council’s website:  www.bristol.gov.uk/schoolplan