Belsize Lib Dems

The public meeting on 14th May was very well attended. Parents made it very clear to the education department how serious the problem is and just how stressed, frustrated and angry they are about the lack of primary school places in the area.  Andrew Mennear, the executive member for education, and his department were unable to provide parents with the reassurances they were seeking so many left feeling disappointed. Two positives came out of the meeting:

1) The education department now accepts the seriousness of the problems and will be taking action to find solutions.

2) A working group, open to all concerned parties, was set up to assist the education department with their task, by providing ideas and direction to the work.Essentially there are two related solutions. The first is providing primary school places for the intake this year, which requires a short term solution such as adding temporary classrooms to existing school. The second is providing a long term solution, which would mean building a new primary school or finding a way to significantly expand an existing school on a permanent basis.

Since the public meeting some progress has been made, but has been slower than hoped. The working group has met twice and has served to focus the efforts of the education department. The good news is that Camden is now committed to providing two temporary classrooms for this year’s intake. The frustrating news is that we still have no indication of where those classrooms will be or what the admissions criteria will be used for the extra places.

The next meeting of the working group will be at 7pm on the 23rd June at the Swiss Cottage Community Centre. We hope that by then the education department will be able to provide parents with more concrete information. Please come along. The key point is that many parents are facing difficult choices about their children’s education. As one frustrated mother put it at the last working group meeting ‘I need answers yesterday!’