Against a national picture of first choice offers falling for both school phases, Reading bucked the trend for primaries, with a rise from 85.5% to 88.0% of families receiving their preferred school. However this is not surprising, given the excess of primary places across the borough rising from 78 in 2018 to 302 in 2019. Several schools are reporting concerns about falling rolls, the financial pressures of which are, for some, exacerbated by the cost of extra staff employed to address the need for bulge classes 6 years ago.
There has, however, been a greater fall against national in the first choice places offered at secondary school. In fact, only 15 out of 151 local authorities had a lower offer rate than Reading. The fall, from 66.3% in 2018, to 64.4%, is unsurprising, given the substantial lack of capacity in Reading secondaries. Over 500 children were placed in schools outside the local authority, and Reading secondaries created over 100 extra places through bulge classes to accommodate the remaining unplaced children. There is a real concern from secondary schools that the demand for places in 2020 will continue to remain high, being the second year of bulge classes leaving primary schools, yet those secondaries who took bulge classes this year are unlikely to be able to repeat the increased offer. A particular concern for parents and carers will be that 12.5% of them weren’t offered any of their preferred schools (2018: 12.3%): a trend that is surely set to continue.