MANCHESTER'S most popular high schools are to be asked to squeeze in hundreds of extra students, less than two years after others were closed because there were too few pupils.
Wright Robinson, Oakwood, Parrs Wood, Levenshulme and Abraham Moss agreed to take an extra 139 pupils between them this year because of the high number of applications.
But next year they are to be asked to squeeze in a further 239 Year 7 youngsters and to be prepared to take the same number extra each year.
Schools have yet to be approached formally about the proposal, which would need to be endorsed by the Department for Education and Skills.
But some headteachers are already concerned that they do not have space to cope.
Overcrowding fears
Iain Hall, headteacher at Parrs Wood High School, which accepted an extra 29 pupils this year, said the school is already overcrowded.
He said: ''The school governing body has always tried to help the local authority and will listen sympathetically. But I must point out that the school is already overcrowded.''
At Levenshulme High School for Girls - which took in an additional 20 pupils this year - headteacher William Skelding says the school may struggle to take more.
Peter Kennedy, headteacher at Oakwood High School, in Chorlton, said the school is already ''overflowing'' but said one solution may be to increase the size of the school when it is rebuilt.
Extra classrooms
However, Neville Beischer, head of Wright Robinson Sports College, said the school would happily take another 45 pupils and was in discussion with the authority about extra classrooms.
Chief education officer David Johnston announced the plan to up the city's Year 7 intake at a meeting of the children and young people's scrutiny committee.
According to the report the vast majority of schools in the city are now full with a single vacancy at Brookway, three at Cedar Mount and 92 at Ducie High School.
Despite the current squeeze on places, Mr Johnston believed the council was correct to go ahead with the other school closures. ''They were done because we had to make more efficient use of our money and buildings,'' he said.
Tweet