SIR - The recent letter in your pages from a local parent raised a number of important issues related to the provision of nursery and school places in our area. It is important these issues should be clarified as there may be a number of prospective and future parents who also lack the necessary information to assist them and support them in their decisions about their children's futures. It is unfortunate that the parent concerned seems to have been misinformed about the situation in relation to our school and I would be pleased to discuss this further with him if he would like to get in touch with me. It is unfortunate, also, that he did not seek clarification from either the school or the LEA before writing to you.

There are two main points raised: the availability of places at our school and the problems with regard to parking for those visiting our premises.

First of all, I am delighted to say that neither I nor the Governing Body have anything to do with drawing up the Catchment Area for our school. This responsiblity lies firmly with officers of the Local Education Authority. The Catchment Area varies from year to year, depending upon the addresses of the children who are wanting places. Either the parent has received misinformation from someone or he has made assumptions which are actually inaccurate. To date there has been no Catchment drawn up for the coming year (1998-99) nor for the year which will affect his own child (1999-2000). A Catchment will only be drawn up when there is over-subscription for a particular intake.

Thanks to the publicity which we received during the past year about the pressure on places at Haworth, a large number of parents of children outside the Haworth village area have sought and found, places for their children in other schools. This means that, at the time of writing, we actually have two places available for the 1998-9 Reception year. I repeat, no Catchment has been drawn up.

Some years there is more pressure than others. This can arise, as in recent years, when the younger siblings of children who were admitted when there was a low intake - and therefore a very wide 'catchment' started their school career. As siblings, no matter what their address, they have priority over other children on the waiting list. This is a well-known criterion. The effect of this is to reduce the size of the Catchment for the remaining available places. Last year, for example, there were 22 children who were siblings, leaving only 20 places for 'first-born' and 'only' children in the village. Eleven families appealed and seven of them were allocated places, even though this was above the official number of places available. Parents do have the right of appeal if they don't get their first choice of school but, naturally, not all of them will win their appeals.

It should be noted that, in the light of the present Review of Schools, it is improbable that Haworth First School will be in existence in September 1999!

The second issue relates to the parking problems at our school. Ours is not a small school. In total, there are 188 families. While there are a significant number of them who walk to school, many need to travel by car.

An additional 'problem' for our own school is that we have a nursery class which serves the whole of the area, not just Haworth village.

Nurseries do not have Catchment Areas. Fifty-six of our children are brought to school every day to attend our nursery. About half are from other villages in the Worth Valley and many from outlying farms and hamlets. Without car transport, this would be impossible and nursery education would be denied their children.

The item reported in the KN arose because one of our parents was concerned at the safety issues related to the large number of vehicles accessing the school grounds at the start and close of school day and the related environmental matters. The parent had seen a report in a national paper that a school in the south of England, where similar problems were being experienced, had facilitated a car-sharing scheme. They had grouped neighbouring families together from their database and had then, with permission from the parents (Data Protection Act), asked parents to car-share wherever possible. Through this action, significant reductions were made in the number of vehicles arriving to and departing from the school. This seemed to me to be a very sensible idea worth floating without our families and I have begun to receive positive responses.

Safety is the main concern we share. Some car drivers (a few are taxi-drivers) ignore the double-yellow lines in Butt Lane. In itself, this is a bad example to offer our children but, more importantly, it makes life quite dangerous and very awkward as the school gates are then blocked, the on-coming traffic is obscured and, as the vehicles are much bigger than they are, the children and many parents and child-minders cannot be viewed by the traffic passing through. Some caring and concerned parents have even been verbally abused when they have requested drivers not to wait there.

Acre Lane, the unmade and unadopted roadway around our premises, is a pot-holed track. We try to operate a one-way system 'in at the top and out at the bottom' to enable traffic flow which will reduce conflict and confusion.

Unfortunately, some drivers choose to ignore this request and tempers have been known to become quite frayed when vehcles come close to crunch and, very seriously, there have been near misses with pedestrians.

MO NEWMAN, headteacher,

Haworth First School.

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