Children forced miles out of Cambridge for secondary school after places run out

Children will be forced to travel up to 15 miles to another town to go to secondary school due to a shortage of available places in Cambridge.

Parents of Year 6 pupils have described their shock after discovering that their children have been refused their top three choices at local secondary schools and will now have to travel as far away as St Ives or St Neots to study.

Some parents say their jobs could be at risk if they have to take children to schools miles away from home, as they will not be able to reach work on time. Alternatively, their children face hours of bus journeys each day.

They have condemned major housebuilding plans for the city at a time when there are already too few school places for the children who live here.

Cambridgeshire County Council admits that 111 children have not been given any of their three preferred choices of school for September.

Mum-of-three Lizzy Jones, who lives on the growing Darwin Green development in Cambridge, discovered her son Arthur had been allocated a secondary school place in St Ives when their first choice had been Chesterton Community College.

Lizzy said: “On Friday I had to call for two hours to get hold of the county council because they hadn’t released the information about our school place. By the time I got through to them, they said that our three preferred schools were well oversubscribed. And the closest my son Arthur could get on the waiting list of any of the preferred schools was 40th place.

“This is absolute madness. We have a secondary school a mile away, which I put as my first choice, and I also applied for two other schools in Cambridge. I don’t understand how it can be OK to send an 11-year-old all the way from Cambridge to St Ives when we have schools on our doorstep.

“If there are not enough school places, then clearly we need to build more schools. There is no feasible way that we could go all that way. And I couldn’t get there in an emergency. I’ve got two other children in primary school in central Cambridge, so I can’t be in two places at once to drop off.

“I am separated from Arthur’s dad, but he had been going to stay with him some nights in the week. If he has to travel to St Ives he will only see his dad at weekends.

After placing Chesterton Community College in first place, they chose Parkside as number two and Impington Village College as third choice. Chesterton has allocated 190 places but 343 pupils put it as their first choice.

Lizzy’s son attends the University of Cambridge Primary School and she is aware of many parents there also unable to find school places in the city.

“It feels like the council is trying to force people to go private, but many of us can’t afford that,” she says.

Meanwhile, a single mum in Cambourne, who did not want to be named, said: “We moved here for a sense of community and because I knew that my son would be able to cycle to school close by as I am currently working four jobs to support us.

“I have friends here who could help out in an emergency and I know that my son would be able to enjoy after-school clubs without worrying about how he would get home in the evening.

“I was absolutely stunned when I was told he would have to travel to St Neots for school. We live five minutes away from Cambourne Village College by car and it is a very short cycling distance. We applied his school place in time and I never thought for a minute he wouldn’t be accepted.

“I’ve looked at buses and it would take him and hour and a half to get there, and i can’t let him travel for three hours each day. He will only be 11. But I can’t drive half an hour in the opposite direction from work and then turn around and expect to get to my job on time - it’s impossible. I haven’t told him about the decision yet - I am just hoping we will get somewhere with the appeal as otherwise i don’t know how we will manage.”

Cambourne Village College had 290 places available and 299 pupils put it as their first choice, meaning nine children have missed out on a place there.

Cllr Antoinette Nestor (Lab, Castle) said: “I have had many residents come forward to tell me they have not been able to access a secondary school place for their child at their local school, and this was particularly the case for people who live in the new area of Darwin Green.

“There’s a lot of uproar, especially in Darwin Green because all these houses are being built, and there’s not many primary schools but it’s even worse with secondary schools. The streets keep growing but there are no schools for the children to go to. There are some very, very unhappy people today when a lot of people didn’t even get their third choice of school.

“It’s part of a wider problem with development. Houses are being built with not enough services - no new schools, not enough GP surgery places, no capacity on the roads and not enough water. We need to pause house building until we can address this.”

The county council, the local education authority, said the 111 children who had not been given one of their three preferred choices were being allocated other schools.

A spokesperson said: “Cambridgeshire County Council has a duty to provide sufficient school places. Every child who applied for a place at a secondary school for September 2024 was offered a place on Friday last week. The council is now processing late applications as is normal practice. We are working with all Cambridge secondary schools to ensure that they have capacity for September 2024.

“The county council provided 300 additional places at Chesterton Community College and spent £10m on that expansion. The Department for Education then subsequently approved Chesterton’s application for a sixth-form, which effectively took that 11-16 capacity away.”

Meanwhile, the school that was supposed to accommodate secondary school children from Darwin Green is still years away from being built.

A council spokesperson said: “The site for the secondary school in Darwin Green is linked to the Darwin Green 2 planning application, which is currently subject to a planning appeal. The estimated opening date depends on the outcome of this appeal and is currently September 2026.”

Year 6 students found out on Friday (1 March) which secondary school has offered them a place for September 2024.

A total of 87.9 per cent of students have been offered a place at their first choice school – up from 87.1 per cent last year.

The proportion offered a place at their first, second or third preference school has also risen from 95.4 per cent in 2023 to 95.8 per cent this year.

The total number of places offered this year was fewer than last at 7,220, compared with 7,413.

Cllr Bryony Goodliffe, chair of Cambridgeshire County Council’s children and young people’s committee said she was “delighted” with the results of the secondary school allocations.

She said: “Our admissions team and place planning team work tirelessly to make sure places are allocated in time for September and once again have done an excellent job.

“I am delighted that the vast majority will attend one of their top three choices, which will ensure the transition from primary to secondary school will be as seamless as possible.”