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SCHOOL'S OUT - SNUB FOR PUPILS
Pleas are ignored as politicians push on with controversial plan
PLEAS from thousands of families struggling to find places for their children at a secondary comprehensive have been ignored.
The West End Extra has learned that education chiefs in Camden are set to announce that a massive government windfall will not be used to help stranded parents.
The news will come as a body-blow to a long-running campaign rocked last month by figures revealing a dramatic rise in pupil places in primary schools in Bloomsbury, Soho and Covent Garden.
The statistics, unearthed by schools campaigner David Bieda, showed a 192 per cent increase since 1979.
But, while the primaries have been teaching more pupils, there has been no effort to provide extra secondary places for them when they are old enough to transfer schools.
Mr Bieda said: “It’s time Camden, Westminster and central government recognised the need for a central London community school to cater for this increase and to take account of further increases in pupil numbers from major developments such as St Giles and the Middlesex Hospital.”
But Camden’s schools chiefs on Monday effectively abandoned the needs of thousands of desperate families.
Even though a massive consultation project had indicated to councillors that they would be foolish to ignore their pleas, they will push ahead with plans to open a new school in St John’s Wood.
The new school, which is likely to be a city academy sponsored by University College London, is planned for a site in St John’s Wood a five-minute walk from Quintin Kynaston in Marlborough Road.
The move comes despite the efforts of Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson who advised schools chiefs on other sites including Central St Martins in Covent Garden, Eastman Dental Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road and Mount Pleasant sorting office in Islington.
Mr Dobson said the St John’s Wood plan was “sloppy” and “second rate”.
He said: “We should be going to government and saying this is what we want and what we need. What it seems we are doing is going to them with something that isn’t what we need but what we think is the only thing that they will accept.” |
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