WAS it a question of getting sums right? In 2008, around the time when today’s four-year-olds were born, Bournemouth council worked out that it had too many school places and Townsend’s school was closed.
The council says it shut because it was not delivering the right standard of education. Could that have been addressed back then?
Today, the sums do not seem to exactly match the needs. Yes, Bournemouth has enough primary places but they are not all in the locations where they are wanted. And Muscliff, not far from the closed Townsend school, is one area where the school’s over-subscribed.
It is concerning that no fewer than 160 Bournemouth children and 103 in Poole have not only been refused a place at their first school choice but their second and third as well.
Bournemouth council is to review its pupil-place planning process.
Shouldn’t that have happened in both Bournemouth and Poole four years ago... and if it did, what went adrift?
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