Primary schools crisis group calls for action over admissions

Parents across Bristol who have not got their children into their local schools are being invited to join a new campaign group.

Its aim is to lobby the city council to ensure that all children can be educated within their own communities.

The group, called Bristol Primary Admissions Crisis (B PAC), is against any children being bussed to primaries outside their areas.

It wants to see temporary classrooms put in at school sites where there is heavy demand and suggests that staff from undersubscribed schools could be brought in to the more popular ones to enable them to take more pupils.

"We want to wave our children off on their first day at the school gates, not at a bus stop," the group said in a statement.

B PAC was formed at a meeting in Bishopston, one of the worst affected areas, on Tuesday night.

Liz Haydon-Turner, one of the campaigners, said: "We want to involve parents from across the city and perhaps be a forum to help them with working out local solutions in their areas."

More than 300 families are still waiting to be allocated reception class places for their four-year-olds for September.

They unsuccessfully applied for their three preferred schools and are concerned because all the others within a reasonable distance of their homes are also oversubscribed.

B PAC believes about 200 families in north Bristol are affected, both on the west side of Gloucester Road, where members knows of 41 children who failed to get into the three schools Bishop Road, Westbury Park and Henleaze, and on the east side, with Sefton Park and Ashley Down infants especially oversubscribed.

Schools in the central and inner city are also oversubscribed, with excessive demand, and there are pockets of families affected elsewhere.

Sixteen families attended Tuesday's meeting and half-a-dozen more are interested in becoming involved.

Mrs Haydon-Turner said: "We want the council to revive its plan to build a primary school at the Brunel field (next to City of Bristol College). In the meantime, we'd like to see the old Fairfield secondary school used as a temporary primary school and extra classes put in at other schools, such as Henleaze, where necessary.

"The council's own documents in support of its Primary Review last year said 'young people are put at a disadvantage as they are required to attend primary school outside their community'."

The group is seeking representation on the council's admissions forum. It has already won the backing of Bristol West Lib Dem Stephen Williams and will be writing to other city MPs and councillors. It has also started an e-petition on the Downing Street website.

Anyone interested in joining the group should email bristolprimaryadmissionscrisis@yahoo.co.uk