Earls Barton Infants School
As you know the Neighbourhood Plan is our way, as residents of the village, to ensure we have a say in the way housing development will occur to meet the future needs of Earls Barton.
Some of the feedback the Neighbourhood Plan Project Team has received, via questionnaires, emails and talking with people face to face, is the worry that the current services within the village will simply not be able to cope with the building of new homes and the influx of new residents into the village.
Will the increase the number of people using services within the village create pressure on the school rolls for both the Infant and Junior Schools? Will this increase also cause pressure on other services such as Doctor’s and Dentist surgeries?
The Neighbourhood Plan Project Team is working closely with the schools and other service providers to ensure that they are able to increase their capacity if necessary in relation to future growth.
In terms of education, a feasibility study is being carried out by Northamptonshire County Council to produce options for expansion for both schools at the present time and further feedback on this will be provided once this is known.
For the immediate future, the County Council considers that there is sufficient capacity available at the schools, confirming so in correspondence which is available to download here.
As ever, the Neighbourhood Plan Project Team will keep you updated via the website, the Earls Barton Appreciation Society on Facebook and with articles within Barton Today and The Tower.
4 comments
In regards to the letter from the county council regarding capacity at the school, one thing they seem to have forgotten is that the current infant school structure only has 8 class rooms and 8 teachers, presently all year one and year two children are being taught in KS1 classes with class sizes of 30. If the intake is increased to 90 per school year after the current intake have left this will equate to a school population of 270 pupils. If this is divided between the 8 classes and teachers then the class size would be 33.75 so this would be above the legal 30 limit before any other criteria is met.
Therefore the school could not manage to accommodate an increase to 90 pupils per year
What do the two village schools say? The Infant school in particular only manages now (with the help of a portacabin) because some years they have been able to fit into two classes not three. Adding 15 a year will need 3 classes per year. As the previous comment made there are not enough rooms for 9 classes. I would like to see the letter and responses from the school displayed on this site as well.
Not only will the school be crammed to the hilt with new children but the car parking situation in and around the school will be worse than it is now with all these new parents dropping off and picking up their kids!
Even if it is proved that the school could be physically extended to take additional pupils, there will still remain the problem of increased traffic flow and hence congestion during the ‘school run’. It clearly states in the Neighbourhood Plan… “New development which potentially exacerbates the problems of congestion and parking, especially in areas where the road width is narrow and parking is an issue, will need to clearly demonstrate that this problem is not increased.”
Has the proposed ‘Grange’ development demonstrated this?
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