Essex County Council have circulated a consultation document in Longdon Hills for a proposal to create a shared cathcment area for Great Berry and Lincewood Primary schools. The shared area will include New Avenure, Russetts, Savoy Close, Sullivan Way, Welbeck Rise and Welbeck Drive.
The following is a letter sent by one resident in the area to representatives of the council:
Dear Karen Garlick and John Schofield,
Today I received a consultation document for a proposed shared admission area for Great Berry and Lincewood Primary School. The proposed area will include my home [in this area]. I have read the document and understood that it will mean that this area will have a lower priority for admissions to Great Berry Primary School. At the same time we only get second priority to Lincewood school after the Lincewood School’s own priority catchment area. Since we are already closer than anyone outside that catchment area, this is not in fact a better priority than we currently have for Lincewood.
In view of this I wish it to be made known that I am strongly against the proposal.
It is not difficult to see what will happen if this proposal is approved. Although the current numbers may not present any problems for 2011 and 2012, there are likely to be further population increases within the Great Berry priority admissions area. For example new houses may be approved by Tesco. Furthermore, we know that Great Berry school does not like having more than two classes for each year and may revert to former numbers if their primary priority admissions area is reduced as proposed. With other homes planned for Basildon it will not be long before both Great Berry and Lincewood are oversubscribed with no room for children from their shared catchment area. Although we live very close to both Great Berry and Lincewood, children living here would not be able to get into either.
The situation is particularly unacceptable because of the growing problem for admissions to secondary schools in this area. In case you are not aware, most of Langdon Hills is not in the priority catchment area of any secondary school. Each year several children from this area do not find places in their four choice schools and are offered James Hornsby. There are no buses from this area that go there, and walking is a considerable distance with several very busy roads to cross. We have noticed that the secondary school admissions has been getting harder each year. Last year children who did not pass any special entrance tests for other schools only found late places at Brentwood County and Shenfield. With the construction of further houses in North Basildon and the closing of Sawyers Hall School these places are unlikely to be available in future years. I will give one other indication of how the difficulty of admissions is increasing: This year there were 133 pupils who sat the entrance test for the Billericay School, the previous year the number was 108 and in former years it had been much less. These children are competing for 27 places granted on the results of this test. In this situation with no choice of secondary school left, many parents will choose to move out of Langdon Hills when their children reach secondary school age and this will further increase the number of primary school children in the area.
I am aware of the problem faced by people living near Tescos who do not get a place in Great Berry and I appreciate that some action is needed to correct this. I agree with the council’s preferred option of expanding Great Berry, however I do not think this would need mixed age classes. It would be better to undertake a larger expansion to allow three classes in each year as this would provide a long term solution which takes into account the continuing increase of homes in the area.
If this cannot be realised in the short term then a fairer change would be to transfer our area (i.e. the proposed shared catchment area) from the priority admissions area of Great Berry to the Priority admissions area of Lincewood. This would have exactly the same effect as the current proposal except that in the case where both Great Berry and Lincewood are oversubscribed we would have priority for Lincewood School over people who are much further away than us in the catchment area. Please could you let me know if this option was considered and if so, why was it rejected?
I have been lucky enough to see my children go through Great Berry and move on to [a good secondary school]. However I feel that I must speak up on behalf of future families who would like to live in this area. I also fear that the council’s policy for schools serving Langdon Hills will soon mean that families do not want to live here and businesses will move away. In the longer term, the much needed regeneration of the whole Basildon area will be set back many years as a result of this gradual erosion of education choices in the area. Please reconsider the consequences of your actions before it is too late.
If you agree that this proposal is a bad idea you have 12Th February 2010 to make your opinion known to Essex County Council. Call Karen Garlick, the planning and admissions advisor on 01245 436708 or write to her at Essex County Council, Chelmsford Essex CM1 1GS
I Have lived in Langdon Hills for ten years.I have four children and Greatberry is my catchment school.I have gone through the distressing ordeal of the appeals process to get three out of four of my children into Greatberry school even though I am catchment(one got in under the sibling rule)My youngest is in reception and two are at Billericay school(My second child got a place at Billericay after passing the entrance exam, the other one got in again under the sibling rule)My eldest could only get into a school in Wickford and has now left school.
This problem will not go away,the only option is to expand Greatberry so all years have three classrooms.The other issue is no secondary school.You cannot call James Hornsby our catchment school, If all parents from Greatberry and Lincewood accepted there childs offer of a place at James Hornsby there would not be enough places, the education authority know and rely on the fact that the majority of parents choose not to send our children to a failing school that has no bus service to take the children there and is to far to walk to.We need to have a secondary school built for the people of Langdon Hills so we can fill it with all the good students who leave Greatberry & Lincewood with no decent school to go to.I am dreading when the time comes to try to get my youngest into a secondary school.
This has been an issue since I moved here from Hornchurch ten years ago.Its such a shame it forces many families to move out of our lovely area.
I agree wholeheartedly with the above. My road is now under the proposed shared admission scheme. Having put two children through nursery by Lincewood school I know how long a trek it is, especially with children. Initially my sons couldn’t get a place at the local playgroup, which meant that many of the friends they made at Oak Wood pre-school didn’t live local to us. They were fortunate enough to get a place at Great Berry, although my youngest only got a place on the sibling rule, when they introduced a third class for that year. He was held back a term while they debated the issue.
The lack of a local secondary school again meant that my eldest goes to Mayflower in Billericay (over a 7 mile drive), one of 20 separate schools that took his final year group. My youngest got a place at Mayflower on the sibling rule, or who knows how far away he would have been from his brother. Needless to say this now means that they are several miles away from all of their school friends.
If parents of primary age children in our area all have to trek the distance involved to Lincewood for a school place then the community will have totally broken down, with children unable to live and play near their school friends.