UK set for school places squeeze, councils warn

Local authorities have claimed the responsibility for councils to ensure that every child has a school place could soon become unachievable.

As the UK’s population continues to grow, councils have called for more powers to open new maintained schools and to compel academies to expand. The news comes as thousands of children are due to hear which secondary school they will attend from September.

Figures from the latest pupil projection statistics show that last year councils had to provide 2,740,000 secondary school places, which is predicted to increase significantly to 3,387,000 by 2024. The Local Government Association (LGA) has said that councils will struggle to meet demand under the current system, which instructs that all new schools must be ‘free schools’ outside local authority control.

The LGA has advised that councils be given the authority to open free schools and direct academies to expand as needed. It claims councils have so far created an extra 300,000 primary school places but will face a new challenge as pupils reach secondary level.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), criticised the government’s policy on free schools.

She said: ”The increase in pupil numbers is not a surprise. The free school experiment has failed in its most important purpose; ensuring every child has a school place."

However, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesman said the government had confidence in the current system.

They said: ”Where local authorities identify the need for a new school they are required by law to invite proposals to run a new free school and then forward these to the department to decide who would be best placed to do this.

”We would encourage councils to work with regional schools commissioners, using their combined local knowledge, to identify top sponsors for new schools in their area, and we are confident there are enough quality sponsors to meet demand."