Major changes to schools throughout Kirklees have been backed.
And plans will see them extended, built and merged.
Kirklees Cabinet yesterday approved the proposals as council leader, Clr Mehboob Khan, said they needed quick solutions.
He said that a parent in his Greenhead ward had contacted him on Monday unable to send their child to a school in Greenhead, Ashbrow or Lindley wards, with Dalton the nearest option.
The changes backed yesterday are:
The merger of Denby Dale Nursery School and Gilthwaites First School.
Public consultation agreed for a primary school at Royds Hall High School, Paddock to create an ‘all through’ school for children aged four to 16.
Reinwood Infant and Nursery School and Reinwood Junior School to admit 210 more pupils, totalling around 840 pupils.
Expansions in Birkby, Ashbrow, Scissett and Dewsbury to admit more pupils to cope with demand.
The school expansion plans could cost up to £12m. No amounts have been given for the Royds Hall ‘all through school’ or for the Denby Dale Nursery and Gilthwaites merger.
Clr Cath Harris, Cabinet member for education, said: “These proposals need to take place in order for us to maintain the basic need provision for children to be able to go to school from September next year.”
She said the Royds Hall proposal “will allow us to move quickly” to make more school places available.
Denby Dale Nursery School and Gilthwaites First School will operate from an extended Gilthwaites school site with one headteacher and governing body. It will be for children aged two to 10 and the children currently at Denby Dale Nursery will relocate.
A consultation for Royds Hall will take place to lower its admission age from 11 to four for the Luck Lane school.
It will be phased, with a 30-place reception class added each year to create a full primary of 210 pupils over seven years.
Clr Mehboob Khan said of the Royds Hall proposal: “If after the consultation we still go ahead there will still be a massive shortage of school places, especially in Crosland Moor and Netherton ward.
“This is the first step to tackling this particular problem.”
Reinwood Infant and Nursery School and Reinwood Junior School will admit 210 more pupils, with seven more classrooms.
Other expansions are: Ashbrow School (105 more pupils), Birkby Junior School (120), Beech Early Years, Infant and Junior School in Golcar and Golcar Junior, Infant and Nursery School (both 60 more pupils), Boothroyd Junior and Infant School, Dewsbury (210) and Headlands CE (VC) Junior, Infant and Nursery School, Liversedge (35).
Scissett Middle School will get a new modular double classroom.
The latest changes are in addition to the previously-announced “super school” merger for Almondbury High School, Almondbury Juniors and Greenside Infants.
