Secondary Education: Admissions

(asked on 7th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to meet increasing need for places in secondary schools in England.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Agnew of Oulton
This question was answered on 20th September 2018

The government has committed £7 billion between 2015 and 2021 to deliver new school places. This funding is additional to our investment in the free schools programme.

Basic need funding is provided each year to local authorities to help them meet the demand for school places in their local areas. Allocations are based on the local authorities’ own data, meaning they receive funding for all the places they need. Funding is announced several years ahead, to give local authorities time to plan local provision. Allocations through 2021 have been announced, including secondary places. The number of places funded by local authorities can be found in Table 1 of the basic need allocations, which is attached and also available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations.

The free schools programme is also continuing to provide secondary places. There are 131 open mainstream secondary free schools that will provide over 117,000 places when at capacity. 71 mainstream secondary free schools have been approved and are due to open in the next few years, providing more than 79,000 places when at capacity. The department is working collaboratively with local authorities to provide free schools to meet basic need.

The latest data shows overall 825,000 additional places were created between May 2010 and May 2017. 248,000 of these were secondary places (including middle schools and all through schools deemed as secondary, and including full final capacity in free schools), with many more delivered since then and in the pipeline. The department is on track to create one million places this decade, the largest increase in school capacity for at least two generations.

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