Villages treated badly over school placements
SIR – I would like to comment on your article regarding the parents of Knebworth children and the fiasco over the allocation of their secondary school places. This situation was totally predicable following the effective closure of Heathcote School to
SIR - I would like to comment on your article regarding the parents of Knebworth children and the fiasco over the allocation of their secondary school places.
This situation was totally predicable following the effective closure of Heathcote School to newcomers this year and the failure of the authority to provide more places at Barnwell.
As a Woolmer Green resident I successfully fought to get my daughter into Barnwell last year (Barnwell is also our nearest school despite us being out of priority area).
It is totally unacceptable that Knebworth /Datchworth /Woolmer Green children should be expected to travel past several other schools to the old town when there is a perfectly suitable school in south Stevenage.
You may also want to watch:
The local authority closed Heathcote School and decided numbers could be absorbed by other schools in Stevenage, but did not consider the villages to the south. As all schools continue to apply the existing county policy which ultimately allocates places to those living nearest the school, those of us for whom ALL schools are more than three miles will be at the bottom of the list for places.
This has been the way of things for at least the last six years when the last policy change occurred.
Most Read
- 1 Headteacher 'very proud' of 'healthy and balanced' free school meal hampers
- 2 Police appeal for public information after puppy found dead on A414
- 3 'Heavy snow' expected across Hertfordshire from tomorrow
- 4 GP practice vaccinated 1,000 people in first week
- 5 Is lockdown working in Herts? Here's what the latest data tells us
- 6 Knife reportedly used to rob man in his 20s outside Co-op ATM
- 7 Party organiser fined £10,000 after 150 people attend gathering
- 8 Two people rescued after flood warnings issued
- 9 Scammer pretending to be a police officer stole thousands from 99-year-old man
- 10 New car park proposed for park
How much is it going to cost the authority to bus all these children to school so far away (which it is now obliged to do under its own rules)?
When is the authority going to start to take responsibility for the shoddy service it is providing to families in rural areas in this respect?
It is not good enough to state it is giving families their second or third choice of school in this case. We have to put three on the form, but for those of us whose nearest school is four or five miles away there really is no other sensible choice.
Knebworth children should be allocated to Barnwell. End of story!
Mrs S Roberts, Woolmer Green.