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Nursery lease plan for pupils without places
Borrowed classrooms bid to solve crisis
CAMDEN Council has been forced to lease classrooms from a £10,000-a-year private nursery school in a bid to solve the primary school places crisis.
Faced with nearly 100 four and five-year-olds without a school place for this September and a refusal by existing state primaries to take on extra classes, the Town Hall will directly run two infant classes at All Hallow’s Hall, Gospel Oak, for a minimum of two years.
Private pre-preparatory school Hampstead Hill, which has been teaching 93 of its older children in the church hall in Courthope Road, will vacate the building at the end of this term and sub-let it to the council.
The deal follows weeks of tense negotiation between parents and education chiefs, and between the Town Hall and schools in the north-west of the borough, where the majority of unplaced children live.
It means the Town Hall will directly employ teachers and a “teacher-in-charge” to run a teaching centre for 60 children – it is not a school, by law – from September.
The full costs of the scheme are still being calculated. But although the council announced the plan on Tuesday under the headline: “Camden finds solution to primary places shortage”, parents and campaigners gave it a cautious welcome.
Dr Liz Taylor, who has led the campaign for a new primary school in Belsize, where there is the largest number of children without a place, said: “Lots of parents will be very relieved. But it raises more questions than it answers. The problem is centred a lot farther to the west and for people in West Hampstead or Fortune Green it is quite a long trek. And what will happen to those parents who, desperate for a place, accepted a school that is more than two miles away? Will they be able to bid for a place [in Courthope Road]?”
A short consultation on the plans has been launched, although negotiations with Lewis Taylor, owner of Hampstead Hill School, are understood to be well advanced and the council has made plans to start work at the hall next week.
Schools chief Councillor Andrew Mennear said: “We understand the stress that some families have been experiencing and hope that this option will meet with their approval. We are working hard to make sure all our children have a school place in time for September, however I am aware that this is a short-term measure and we will continue to investigate longer-term solutions.” |
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