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By RICHARD OSLEY
 
Families struggle for places in schools admission tussle

Fresh calls for new school as parents find desks are already fully booked

SCORES of families have been told not to panic after being left without a secondary school place for their children in the latest admissions struggle.
A new council report confirms that 159 families in living in the borough have come through the applications process without a single offer from a Camden school.
But the Town Hall says the backlog is much smaller than previous years and should be cleared up by September.
Education boss Councillor Lucy Anderson said: “Last year there was double this number and we managed to sort it all out. Lots of things can happen, people move away and everybody will be offered a place. The figure is an improvement from last year.”
Nevertheless, council chiefs remain under pressure to build a new school to meet the mounting demand in the south and west of the borough and has begun monitoring developments in Islington where a new City Academy is due to take its first intake next September.
Strategists think the new St Mary Magdalene School in Holloway could go some way to easing the crisis for places in Camden and reducing the numbers of Islington residents who decide to send their children to schools across the borough borders.
Ironically, Camden’s Labour group has made a public point of rebelling against the government’s education policy and has been steadfastly against the use of City Academies and Trust Schools. The new model, however, has been embraced in Liberal Democrat-held Islington and could now help Camden’s admissions headache.
Cllr Anderson said: “We think the new school could make a significant difference because so many Islington parents decide to come across to Camden to send their children to school. I don’t support the City Academy model, I would prefer a new community school if you are going to have a new school. But it is Islington and there is nothing we can do about that.”
She added: “It would help if Islington improved its schools – then parents would be sending some many children to Camden schools.”
The new statistics, however, are worrying for Camden parents who have also been told that all of the borough’s schools apart from Maria Fidelis in Somers Town are already fully booked for next year.
Councillors and school governors are due to discuss the problem at a council meeting tonight (Thursday).
Emma Jones, one of the main organisers for a new school in the south of the borough, said: “The important thing, apart from placing children as soon as possible, is for the council to acknowledge the need for a new school south of the Euston Road and get on with the job of making it a reality.”
Lib Dem councillor John Bryant, who wants a new secondary in the north west of the borough, said: “While the Liberal Democrats and others are campaigning for good schools for everyone, the Labour Party’s stated ambition through their Children’s and Young Peoples Plan is to do the minimum required of them by statute. That is simply not good enough. If New Labour’s mantra is ‘Education, Education, Education’ then they need to do something more than their legal requirement.”
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