Suffolk Free School Problem Mapped

The map below has been produced by @schoolduggery on Twitter and shows secondary schools and proposed free schools in Suffolk. It helps to visualise the issue by showing which schools are oversubscribed and which have spare capacity. As you can see Suffolk does not have many oversubscribed schools largely because it is not an area with a growing population of school age children. In fact some areas have reducing numbers. The proposed free schools are shown which of course add additional capacity.

Whilst it might be the case in more urban areas that you can add school capacity without a massive impact on other schools this is not the case in Suffolk. Many of the secondary schools are already relatively small and have already struggled to manage their budgets. The concern is additional places will weaken or even in some cases close existing schools. And these are not schools that are in need of improvement. In fact the satisfactory schools that tend to be in the more urban parts of the county are unlikely to be impacted much. It is Good and Outstanding schools under threat.

View Suffolk Schools and Proposed Free School in a larger map

Key

+xx is number of surplus places in just the entry yeargroup in 2011/12
-xx is number of oversubscribed places in entry yeargroup in 2011/12
Green - secondaries with unfilled places 2011/12
Red - oversubscribed 2011/12
Blue- open or approved free school
Yellow - proposed free school (locations unconfirmed)

Map produced by @schoolduggery please tweet any corrections