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Category: Whiteley Schools

Whiteley Primary School News

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A generation of Whiteley children are being denied education within their community since Winchester City Council’s decision to refuse to transfer a vital piece of land at Meadowside Recreation Ground. Hampshire County Council and Fareham Borough Council wanted to build a £5.5m, 210 pupil church School on land next to the Meadowside Recreation Centre. £4M of funding to provide a much needed new primary school for Whiteley was lost in 2007 after Whiteley Parish Council, who opposed the plan, persuaded WCC not to release a small part of the Meadowside as the site for placement of the school despite protest letters from over 1,300 residents.

WCC were warned that the situation was getting desperate in Whiteley as other Ward schools were becoming full. It now appears that these concerns were justified as many families now face driving across J9 and Segensworth roundabouts in rush hour after their children were rejected for places at their local primary schools. Annually 35 - 47 children are turned down from Whiteley Primary School (33%) each year, often they have also been turned down by their second-choice school as well, which means parents will have to take their children outside the local area sometimes as far as Botley and Stubbington.

In Park Gate, Sarisbury and Locks Heath the Primary schools are usually oversubscribed although demand for these schools was lower in 2010. This situation is adding to the issues of traffic in Leafy Lane as parents are commuting children to school along this road.

Only children under 8 years old, allocated to a school more than two miles away, or 8 years old and over being sent to a school more than three miles away, will have their transport costs paid by the county. Details

The next best hope for a new school will be if developers get permission to build another 3,000 homes on land North of Whiteley which will require primary schools and a secondary school to serve the area. However the school is not likely to be built before a large number of houses to fund it have been built during which time the shortage of school places is likely to become even more acute. There must be doubt in the current economic climate whether Whiteley North will even start in 2012.

HCC say that an acceptable travel time for a parent to get their child to a school with spare places is upto 45 minutes.

In January 2010 another 25 children who Parents applied to Whiteley Primary School were not offered places. 19 of them were offered places at their 2nd choice school and the rest were offered places at St John the Baptist C of E Primary School at Titchfield Common. The current distance to live from the school to stand a chance of getting in is 0.48miles.

In 2012 37 families were unsuccessful with their applications to Whiteley Primary School. That means 60 children were not successful in getting a place, furthermore 16 families did not get any of their three choices of schools for reception. All these children will be educated elsewhere for the foreseeable future.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 16:59

 
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