Academy attacked over catchment area

A BRISTOL academy that is opening a primary school has been accused of "social engineering" over its pupil intake.

Colston's Girls' School has drawn up a catchment area for its proposed reception class for boys and girls that includes much of Redland, Bishopston and St Andrew's but leaves out parts of Montpelier and St Paul's which are closer to the Cheltenham Road school.

Parent campaigners say they welcome any new school but are shocked that the CGS plans are for an area extending 180-250 metres to the south-west – as far as Bath Buildings – and about 1.8 km to the north east – to Coldharbour Road.

The group, Local Schools for Local Kids, formed last year to lobby for more primary places in Montpelier and St Werburgh's, said their area needed school places just as acutely as Redland.

The group said: "We would question the intentions of the school in terms of trying to engineer its pupil intake, but what makes matters worse is that Bristol City Council is helping to fund a school that appears to be deliberately elitist and socially divisive, a school concentrating its efforts on the affluent middle class families in the large houses of Redland as opposed to tenants of Dove Street flats in Lower Kingsdown, or the terraces of lower Montpelier.

"Maybe they feel that teaching children from a wider range of economic backgrounds would threaten their bid to become the best primary school in the city."

The parents are also concerned that the proposed catchment area, in which places will be allocated by a lottery system, will mean too many children being driven to school.

They said: "We would like to see more local primary schools but believe this kind of social engineering cannot be a good thing in the long term for Bristol's schools."

CGS principal Lesley Ann Jones said the school had decided to draw up a catchment area, rather than use the common practice of allocating places based on straight-line distance between home and school, after discussions with the city council.

It seemed the best way to ensure the need for extra primary places in Redland was met, she said.

Under the proposed system if there are more applications than places, the names of applicants living within the catchment area will go into a hat and be chosen at random.

Mrs Jones admitted that the result would be an intake "not as local as I would have hoped".

Council spokeswoman Julia Walton said: "The school set the area after discussions with us covering the lack of places in the Redland area and the outcomes from our consultation with local schools about the effect of introducing more places, in particular the large number of additional places already put in around the M32."