Schools

With children soon due to return to their classrooms, the issue of how pupils will travel to and from school is becoming urgent. There are serious questions about how many will be able resume using public transport. Across the country the government is telling local authorities that they want at least half of pupils with journeys of less than two miles who have previously used buses to switch to active travel - walking or cycling. In London it's still unclear under what circumstances free public transport will be available to schoolchildren. This article points readers in the direction of some recently published information relevant to school transport in the age of Covid-19.

On 4th June Enfield Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to consider the re-opening of schools in the borough as the Covid-19 lockdown is relaxed. At the meeting questions submitted by the National Education Union (NEU) were read out and answers given. In a GlobalNet21 webinar, Francis Sealey interviews Clare Docherty, Secretary of the NEU's Enfield District, about the issues raised by the union and how well she felt the scrutiny process worked.

Need help finding your way around the confusing process of getting your child into a primary school? Finding that you live in a school catchment 'black hole'? A new website run by two Palmers Green parents who've been through all this could be just what you need.

Bowes Southgate Green school will not accept any new intake in September 2021 or thereafter. Negotiations aimed at setting up a permanent (and separate) school at the site in Wilmer Way which Enfield Learning Trust leases from Broomfield School have been unsuccessful. Bowes school will continue to accept siblings of pupils at the Southgate Green school and accommodate them at its main site in Bowes Road. This news was published in a recent newsletter issued by Fox Lane & District Residents Association (FLDRA), which also includes an analysis of the overall situation regarding primary school places in the western part of our area.

Enfield Council's cabinet member for children's services has written to the education secretary asking him to reconsider the Government's decision to press ahead with the directive to partially reopen schools on 1 June 2020.