As a parent living in Timperley with two young sons, I know just how important it is for families across Altrincham and Sale West to have access to our brilliant local secondary schools.
There have been long-standing issues with secondary school places in our area and so I organised a meeting with local parents last year to discuss this issue and how I was able to support them. This issue has long been the case because of the popularity of our local schools and has been exacerbated by huge local authority cuts and cuts to the budgets of almost all our local schools and capital investment under the previous government.
With this in mind, I am delighted that this year everyone who applied on time and followed the application advice has been offered one of their preferred schools, with 81% getting their 1st preference. This is significant progress.
I’ve been in regular contact with local headteachers, asking them to increase pupil intake where possible and I have written to every local Grammar school encouraging them to do all they can to support local children and our communities. I have consistently pressed the Council and school trusts to explore all expansion options to create much needed additional school capacity in our area.
I’m pleased that these efforts resulted in more places for this academic year at several local schools, including more places permanently at Sale High School. In addition, Trafford Council has recently confirmed it is progressing the purchase of the former Loreto Prep site to expand North Cestrian School by 300 new places. You can read more about this here.
My priority remains ensuring every child in Altrincham and Sale West has fair access to one of our brilliant local schools.