Unused spaces in primary schools hit by falling pupil rolls could be turned into temporary sites for special schools, under plans discussed by the DfE.
The plans are being mooted as special schools face a huge struggle to accommodate the rising numbers of children requiring specialist support.
But school leaders and unions warn the move risks being a “quick fix” and a “sticking plaster” that fails to provide the permanent special school places that are “desperately needed”.
The pandemic has led a number of London boroughs to predict surplus primary school places of up to 20 per cent by 2025, the DfE property company LocatED states in its annual report.
“The need to retain buildings in a secure and safe condition, even when not in use, means that the resulting vacant and unused school accommodation will pose a burden on budgets,” it adds.
It continues: “Working with the affected boroughs and the DfE, LocatED is exploring community-oriented, medium-term meanwhile uses for these sites, to ensure they are not permanently lost from the education estate.”
The space could be used for “medium-term accommodation for special educational needs/alternative provision schools”, the annual report says.
Spaces could also be turned into teacher-led nurseries, in-school mental health and community services, used for “commercial uses to generate financial benefits for schools”, or used to house other schools undergoing building work as part of the government’s “net zero” target, the report says.
‘Damning admission of failure’
But housing special schools temporarily in unused primary school spaces does not amount to the broader plan for capacity growth that the specialist sector ”desperately needs”, warned Simon Knight, joint headteacher of Frank Wise School in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
He said: “The increasing discussion of the use of available capacity in primary schools to host pupils needing places in special schools is a damning admission of failure regarding the strategic planning for special school places - a failure that has been long known by those working in both the mainstream and specialist sectors.”
The proposal carries the risk of pupils being educated in primary school spaces that “isolate them from their peers and fail to provide the resources available within special schools”, he added.
And he said it was important that any plan did not amount to a “policy of convenience” and instead had “the quality and effectiveness of the provision at its heart”.
Warren Carratt is chief executive officer of Nexus, a multi-academy trust based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which runs 13 special schools - with two more due to join it. He said it “made sense” to explore different options for addressing capacity issues in the specialist sector.
But he questioned how the plan would help older pupils.
He said: “One of the problems that will generate is what happens when children graduate from primary to secondary school? Ensuring there’s capacity up the chain is necessary - I wouldn’t be a fan of using primary schools to house secondary students.”
His own trust, which serves children from ages 2-19 across its chain of schools, runs units in two nearby primaries, for which it pays rent, and also uses a converted community space based in a mainstream secondary school in Barnsley.
“[Pupils] get the social enrichment and self-esteem from being in a mainstream, but the intensive support of being part of a special school,” he said.
‘This can’t be done on the cheap’
The trust has had to be “very careful” about the students it puts forward for this arrangement, in order to avoid “reintroducing trauma” for those who “may have had a bad time in mainstream”, he cautioned.
He also pointed to the risk “that notice can be served” by the organisation legally responsible for the building. “Maintaining good relationships is very important,” he said.
The DfE acknowledged the need for more special schools capacity in last year’s SEND review.
It has pledged to create 30,000 “high-quality” school places for children with special needs and disabilities, and “up to 60” new special and alternative provision free schools, with a £2.6 billion capital funding pot spread out between 2022 and 2025.
Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said it was “sensible” to consider the impact of falling pupil rolls but that ASCL had concerns about temporarily housing special school pupils within primaries with unused space.
She said: “The types of spaces and resources required to best meet the needs of special school pupils is something that requires careful thought. This cannot be done on the cheap, based on where space happens to be available in other schools.
“These plans appear to be an attempt to find a quick fix to the problem instead of providing the significant investment required to make more permanent special school places available.”
‘A sticking plaster solution’
Like Ms Mulholland, James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said it made sense to explore how unfilled space in primaries could be used, but said this needed to be done carefully.
He said: “It is abundantly clear that there is a shortage of special school places and the government must address this as a priority...However, it is essential that the spaces being used are fit for purpose and have the facilities and resources that pupils need.”
He added: “The concern is that this would become a sticking plaster solution, rather than the long-term plan we desperately need.”
LocatED’s accounts also reveal that its full business case for 2023-25 has been accepted by the government, and will see its scope expanded from its core role of securing sites for free schools to also include “estate efficiency initiatives, further education estate advice and cross-government partnerships”.
The DfE declined to share the business case, saying it was for “internal use only” - even though LocatED is a public body and received £9.24 million from the DfE to cover its 2020-21 operating costs, of which £4.66 million went on employees.
Chief executive Lara Newman last year received a salary of between £200,000 and £205,000, with total remuneration of between £250,000 and £255,000 - the same as the year before.
LocatED hit all its key performance indicators last year.
The accounts also state that the public body is at an “advanced stage” in plans to turn underutilised space at three school sites into housing projects, under the DfE’s Surplus Land for Housing pilot.
Tes understands that 12 school sites in total have been deemed as potentially viable for the pilot, out of at least 316 school sites that the DfE asked LocatED to review.
As revealed by Tes last year, plans for teacher housing on school land have been quietly dropped by the government.
