Education boss 'confident' Shrewsbury has enough secondary school places
An education leader said she can "confidently assert" there are enough school places for children in a town, despite fresh calls for a new secondary school.
A renewed plea for another school to be built in Shrewsbury was made by Councillor Alex Wagner after a town council meeting.
During the meeting, a concerned parent claimed that more than a fifth of children in Shrewsbury don't get a place in their first-choice school. She said that in Shrewsbury, 79 per cent of children get their first choice, compared to the county average of 94 per cent.
However, Councillor Kirstie Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council's cabinet member for children and education, said the numbers had been "misunderstood", and insisted there are enough places for secondary school children in the town.
She said: “The information quoted has been sourced from the official local authority school preference data following secondary offer day on March 19. This data has unfortunately been misunderstood and an inaccurate interpretation of this presented.
“The data reported to the Department for Education each year is by local authority area and is not split into smaller geographical areas, such as towns. This enables like-for-like data to be compared across the country for each local authority.
“However, we can confidently assert that there are sufficient secondary school places in Shrewsbury for Shrewsbury residents. The number of applications of secondary school places in Shrewsbury received ahead of offer day from families living in the Shrewsbury catchment area was 788. There are currently 816 secondary places available across the four secondary schools in Shrewsbury following the completion of the fantastic new teaching block last year at Meole Brace School.
“Across the council area, 93.7 per cent of pupils, even more than last year, have been offered their first preference school for next year, 99% have been offered a place at one of their preferred schools, and all children have been offered a school place.”
Councillor Wagner, who represents Bowbrook, launched a petition last year for a new secondary school. More than 500 signatures were gathered.
