Parents’ Choice at Risk Under Moves to Cap Pupil Numbers

By ANDREW PICKEN

PARENTS face having less choice over where they send their children to school if plans to cap pupil numbers get the go-ahead, education leaders warned today.

Balgreen Primary and Craiglockhart Primary are among the first Edinburgh schools earmarked for a reduction in their intake for the 2006-07 session. The move would see both schools’ intake reduced by a total of 40 pupils for the next academic year.

The proposals follow last year’s controversial capping of new entrants at six other popular primary schools across the Capital.

And education chiefs confirmed today even more city schools face having caps placed on them in the future. The plans are likely to mean non-catchment-area children will find it more difficult to get places at some of the city’s most popular schools.

It comes as other schools in the city, such as Broughton Primary, face the opposite problem of falling school rolls leading to staff cuts and larger class sizes.

Around a quarter of primary schools in Edinburgh are expected to close by 2013 to cope with falling pupil numbers, and council chiefs are trying to balance this with increasing demand for the most popular schools.

An increase in the use of mixed P1 and P2 classes is also likely if more schools are capped according to education experts.

Parents have expressed concerns over their choices being eroded and the fact that some siblings will be forced to attend different schools.

Colin Mackay, Edinburgh secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland union, said: “I think what we are seeing is part of the rationalisation process where they are trying to juggle falling rolls, too many schools and new targets over class sizes.

“Parents will need to fight even harder to get their kids to the school of their choice. There is no reduction in the number of teachers so we are happy about that but composite classes are not ideal.”

Craiglockhart and Balgreen primaries both face cuts of their P1 intake from 60 pupils in the current school year to 40 pupils for next school year.

Both schools traditionally attract high numbers of non-catchment pupils and these restrictions will hit them the hardest.

Mum-of-two Caroline Aston, from Stenhouse, has her daughter Lauren in P2 at Balgreen Primary and was hoping to send her other daughter Louise there when she starts school in the autumn.

She said: “I am outside the catchment area for Balgreen and I’ve been told our chances of getting Louise in there are slim.

“I’m beside myself at the thought of having to pull my older daughter out of the school because I can’t be in two places at once.

“I don’t see why they want to drop the intake by that much because it almost automatically rules out parents who choose to send their kids to that school.”

At Broughton, parents are mounting a campaign against threatened cuts of three teachers and larger class sizes.

Alan McIntosh, chairman of the school board, said: “This cut has been occasioned by a slight reduction in the number of children expected to attend here next academic year. This would constitute a total fall in the school roll over a three-year period of just 20 pupils, and yet in the same period the school would have lost three teachers and three classes.”

Edinburgh’s Tory education spokesman, Councillor Jeremy Balfour, said: “If schools work well and are popular as a result we should be maintaining the good standards not cutting the intake.”

Councillor Ewan Aitken, the city’s education leader, said the move was designed to secure the long-term future of many of the city’s schools.

He added:

“Parents in each school have been given an early warning that there is a possibility of capping because we have been previously criticised for not letting them know early enough.”