Northamptonshire leads on number of new school places created throughout England

Northamptonshire has come joint-first in the country for providing the top number of school places. (File picture).

Data published by the Department of Education (DfE) showed Northamptonshire is ranking above the national average when providing new school places, the county council has today (Tuesday) said.

Northamptonshire was ranked joint first across the country for the percentage of school places added between 2017/18 and 2018/19 in Ofsted “Outstanding/Good" primary and secondary schools.

Northamptonshire achieved 100% compared to a national average of 88% for secondary and 91% for primary.

The DfE scorecards provide a snapshot of the progress each local authority is making towards ensuring sufficient, good-quality school places are being provided.

Northamptonshire County Council cabinet member for children, families and education councillor Fiona Baker said: “I am very pleased to see that the scorecards recently published by the Department of Education show that Northamptonshire ranks highly compared to the national average in many areas.

“This demonstrates how the ongoing efforts to create additional good quality school places to meet demand in Northamptonshire is proving successful. And this challenge is ongoing – our growing county means that work to provide more school places in the future needs to continue, so we will keep working to make sure children have a bright future, living and learning in our county”

The county was also ranked first for the percentage of school places created in schools with a high Progress 8 score, a new rating for English secondary schools which shows how well students have progressed academically during their time there. Again, the county achieved 100%, compared to a 45% national average.

Primary school numbers in Northamptonshire have increased 23% since 2009/10, compared to a 19% average growth nationally.

This has seen 98.6% of pupils receiving the primary school of their choice in September 2019, compared to a 97.5% national average.

Average growth in secondary school numbers since 2009/10 was 30%, compared to an 18% national average. Despite growth in secondary school numbers in Northamptonshire being 66% higher than the average national increase, the number of pupils that received a secondary school of their choice was 93.9%, compared to national average of 93%.