Council approaches all secondary schools to ask them to take on additional pupils

Peterborough City Council has approached all secondary schools in its boundary to ask if they can take on more pupils.

The council has said that many have responded with the offer of additional places.

Cabinet papers note that the council was forced to ask school’s for the extra capacity due to a “unprecedented” number of families coming to Peterborough in the last 12-15 months that has seen the council’s school place capacity outstripped.

This is particularly the case in Years 4-9.

One of the schools that has responded to the request is Stanground Academy.

The school has approached the council to fund its extend its dining hall by approximately 250 seats. This would allow the academy to cope with an increased number of 300 new admission in the 2025-2029 academic years.

The school was set to accept 240 new pupils for the 2024/25 school year but this has been agreed to be upped to 325.

The school was opened as an academy in 2013 with an agreed roll of 1800 pupils.

To date the academy has never been at capacity however the dining room is considered operationally inadequate for its 1,408 pupils, as of April.

The Academy expects to increase its total pupil numbers to approximately 1,600 by September 2024.

The current dining hall has a seating capacity for 390 pupils and is not sufficient to cater for the additional intake of pupils.

The project timescale is approximately 12 months including a 26 week build period and must be approved the council’s cabinet.

The option that officers have recommended the cabinet to approve would see the council enter into a Grant Funding Agreement with the academy and appoint a surveyor to review the scheme design, costings and work program put forward by the school.

An alternative option put forward is that the council could lead and fund the project but officers assessed that the council did not have have the capacity to deliver the project in the next 12 months.

The final decision will be made by the city council’s cabinet at its meeting on July 16 (4pm).