Liverpool primary school refused right to expand

Sep 29 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

A PRIMARY school has been refused permission to increase its intake by half because of fears it would have a negative impact on standards in neighbouring schools.

Liverpool’s executive board yesterday rejected a request by Childwall CE Primary school to be allowed to increase its annual new intake of Year 1 pupils from 40 to 60.

Government policy is to allow successful schools to expand, but the city council judged the Woolton Road school, which was given a “good” score in its last Ofsted report, was not uniquely successful in the area.

Last night, the school revealed it was planning to appeal against the decision to an adjudicator.

Headteacher Diane Shaw said: “We are extremely concerned about the financial future of our school.

“An admission number of 40 is absolutely absurd, and makes it very difficult for teaching and allocation of resources.

“We are very disappointed and will be taking it to an adjudicator.”

But Stuart Smith, Liverpool’s executive director for childrens services, said the financial implications of the expansion was that £320,000 would have to be taken off other schools to fund the increase in admissions.

Cllr Paul Clein, executive member for children services, said: “I think there would be knock-on effects in the wider area and that it could lead to school closures and a reduction in choice for parents.”

He said last year there were 110 applications for 45 places and a few more children got in on appeal., and said the benefit would be marginal as opposed to the wider impact.

The city is taking its guidance from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) which states: “The decision maker should only turn down proposals for successful and popular schools to expand if there is compelling objective evidence that expansion would have a damaging effect on standards overall in an area.

“It is for the decision maker to decide whether a school is successful and popular.”

Childwall CE Primary School was last inspected by Ofsted in January 2006 and scored 2, which is “good”.

However, of the remaining six schools in the area, two got the top mark of 1 for “outstanding”, the other four got a grade of 2.

A council document stated that “judgments indicate that Childwall CE Primary School is not uniquely successful, nor is it even the most successful primary school serving the area.”

Yesterday the council said it was not satisfied expansion would of itself raise local standards of provision.

Liverpool is due to carry out a city-wide review of primary schools next year, to prepare for the primary phase of the authority’s Building Schools for the Future programme, to rebuild or renovate schools.

Cllr Clein said other schools may be concerned Childwall was attempting to get ahead of that review by proposing expansion now.

But Church ward councillor Colin Eldridge had a different view.

He said: “A lot of parents want to send their children to Childwall, and as ward councillor it would be very difficult for me not to support the choice of the parents.”

davidbartlett