Carlisle MP Julie Minns told the Prime Minister that the city’s specialist SEND school was bursting at the seams.
At present Carlisle is only served by James Rennie School, which was rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
In Prime Minister’s Questions today, Ms Minns told Sir Keir Starmer: ““James Rennie is an outstanding specialist school in the heart of my Carlisle constituency.
“However, having already converted every spare corner into classrooms, exceeded its published admissions number, and with 43 known applications for September, it is literally bursting at the seams. It cannot expand further, what is needed is an additional specialist school for North Cumbria.
“What assurances can the Prime Minister give parents in Carlisle and north Cumbria, that this Government will put children before ideology, and allow local authorities to tackle the shortage in SEND provision his government inherited?”
Sir Keir said: “Thank you for raising this vital issue. It’s not the first time it has come up.
“We are supporting mainstream schools to increase SEND expertise while also establishing dedicated SEND units.
“Because we need to make sure that specialist schools can also cater for those with the most complex needs. We are working on this. It has come up time and time again. We are doing that vital initial step.”
Under the Government’s new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, local authorities will have greater flexibility to respond to local needs and open a new school if necessary.
The Government also announced a £740m cash injection to pave the way for more pupils with SEND to thrive in mainstream schools.
This new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to be more accessible for children with SEND, and to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs.
