Annual panic leads to call for a new school to be built

PARENTS and pupils across Camden are facing a scramble for school places at the borough’s top-rated secondaries.
The panic has led to renewed calls for a new school to be built.
With the waiting lists for places more than 100-strong once again at each of the borough’s nine secondary schools, pupils living more than a mile from the front gates have found it all but impossible to make it into their first choice school.
Precise figures for the number of children searching for a last-minute place are being kept under wraps by officials until a full council meeting on Monday.
But a handful of 11-year-olds are believed to be sitting at home this week while their friends begin a new life in year seven.
Many more have been forced outside the borough into Westminster, Islington, Brent and Barnet, where schools often fail to live up to Camden’s high standards.
One parent, Jackie Elsay, was advised by officials to check for places in Barnet for her daughter Kamilia, even though they live more than seven miles away in Bloomsbury Street, near the southernmost point in the borough.She said: “I didn’t even bother applying for the schools in Camden we were interested in because I was told we had no chance; both of my older daughters were refused and now Kamilia has been refused entry at the nearest school in Westminster.
“She is crying every night because she is upset but what is she supposed to do?”
Liberal Democrat councillors called for a new school to be built in the north of the borough at the start of the summer.
That call was last night (Wednesday) supported by the Conservative Party at the Town Hall.
Councillor Sheila Gunn said: “If schools are oversubscribed again then maybe it shows that Camden were wrong to cut the number of places when they did”
She has asked Camden’s Labour Party to spell out whether they intend to buy into the government’s City Academy scheme to build a new school.
Cllr Gunn said: “I thought that it is something that is so New Labour that Camden would be interested but I think a lot of the councillors are unsure what to do. If they did get around to a scheme, they would probably suffocate it in so many rules and regulations. It would probably be very PC but not terribly effective.”
Camden’s education supremo Nick Smith is expected to answer questions on the crisis at Monday’s full council meeting. It is possibly the last he will attend as the council’s schools chief with a cabinet reshuffle due early next month.
Chairman of the Bengali Tenants and Parents Association Joynal Uddin, speaking on Sunday at a showcase of talent by Banglashur, an after-school club for Bengali children, said: “We are working at the moment on securing funding from the council for extra-curricular activities so that Bangladeshi children who are born here can learn about their culture, but long term we should have a Muslim school in Camden.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair has been a strong advocate of faith schools, while City Academies, his vaunted replacement for the so-called “bog-standard” comprehensive, are already being built in neighbouring Islington.
But current Town Hall plans are focussed only on adding extra classes at existing schools.
A Town Hall press official said: “To meet a possible demand for an extra 120 places by 2010, we have already expanded existing schools and are also considering whether further expansion of existing schools or building a new one would be the right solution.
“We hope to receive funding for this capital investment through the Government’s Building schools for the Future programme, which could be awarded in 2008 at the earliest.
“The issue of a Muslim faith school has not been formally raised with us, though we are consulting with Muslim leaders on a regular basis.
“If building a new school is the best solution, we would consult widely with the community about what type of school it should be and listen to what they had to say.
“Camden wants all the borough’s schools to respect and reflect the diversity of the population and we would consider all options.”