Glum news on school places “choice” in Haringey unfortunately.

As I report over on my website, one out of three children in Haringey have not received a place at their preferred secondary school – figures released by Haringey Council show that only 67% of children starting secondary school in 2008 would be able to attend their first preference school.

Worse still – the number of children not receiving their first place increased by 3% from last year and no progress was made in children receiving their first two preferences. Over the past four years children not receiving their first or second preference have increased from 11% in 2005 to 18% in 2006, 20% in 2007 and 20% in 2008.

This has been a problem since before I became a councillor ten years ago, and the Liberal Democrats have constantly reminded Haringey Council that better forward planning is needed before this reaches crisis level. Again, we see a failure in planning, and again we see an increase in this figure. Labour have poured money into education without results – how long will it be until children in Haringey have the service they deserve?”