Nelson Thomlinson widens net for pupils

By Sarah Newstead

Last updated 05:42, Friday, 05 September 2008

WIGTON’S Nelson Thomlinson secondary school will this year offer more places outside its catchment area to boost falling numbers coming from its feeder primaries.

An aging population and lack of affordable family housing in North Allerdale’s villages are behind the drop at rural primary schools.

Nelson Thomlinson deputy head David Ferriby said: “The age profile of these villages has gone up and there’s fewer young families.”

It is not clear how large the shortfall from feeder schools could be when the current Year 6 pupils are due to move up to secondary school in September 2009.

Chris Rafferty, headteacher of Bowness-on-Solway, has seen pupils numbers decrease by over a third in seven years.

He said: “I took over the school eight years ago. About 12 months after I joined we had 105 pupils, now I’ve got 68.

“Nobody with young families is moving into the area. We are an aging population in Bowness and with the housing market not changing, houses are just too expensive here. There’s nothing moving. ”

Mr Rafferty said schools with falling numbers are having to manage with increasingly tighter budgets as funding is largely allocated according to numbers on roll.

But Bolton School headteacher, Amanda Pitcher, said the Bolton Low Houses school is beginning to buck the trend.

“They built a new housing scheme here a couple of years ago and because they were family houses, you do find a lot of young families moving in,” she said.

Susie Shepherd, headteacher at Silloth’s Solway Community Technology College, believes Cumbria County Council, is not ruling out the possibility of “all-through schooling” for rural areas, with pupils attending the same school from the age of four until 16.