School Organisation Plan
Policies and Principles
The School Organisation Plan represents an opportunity to bring together various policies and principles used to plan for the provision of school places.
It sets out the borough's current situation in providing school places and lays down the framework for action.
It also provides a range of solutions, taking us forward to ensure that all factors affecting the provision of places are considered.
School Organisation Plan 2003 - Full Version (December 2003) 
PDF 400K
School Organisation Plan 2003 - Summary PDF 33K
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Ofsted inspection
In January 2002 the local education authority was inspected by Ofsted. The final inspection report commented that Barking and Dagenham is an innovative and in some respects pioneering local education authority and that the local education authority's achievement has been, and remains, a striking one.
This is evident in the current climate in schools in Barking and Dagenham which is characterised by ongoing improvement, rising levels of achievement and the continued effort to bring about new opportunities.
Listening to parents
Parents of children in the borough are respected partners in education and their views and expectations are valued.
The local education authority aims to satisfy as many parental preferences as possible, though it must balance the equation to take account of the current supply of school places at each school.
A wide range of factors affect this, including family mobility, new house building developments and migration rates.
Despite this, the planning process seeks to ensure that schools do not become either overcrowded or under-utilised and that local demands are satisfied wherever possible.
To do this we are developing a range of provision in school accommodation and as well as spending money from our own capital programme and seeking funding support from a range of government initiatives.
Community priorities
Driving our work in this area is the borough's commitment to the community priorities. In particular, Better Education and Learning for All and Promoting Equal Opportunities and Celebrating Diversity.
This Plan will help to incorporate the priorities by considering the likely impact of changes to the community and life in the borough.
School places
Demand for school places is increasing and is set to continue for several years.
The squeeze on school places is evident in both the primary and secondary sectors and work is ongoing to ensure that future provision alleviates this situation.
We are delighted that proposals for the new Jo Richardson Community School on the temporary site have gone extremely well.
As planned the new school opened in September 2002 and now has 2 forms of entry - Year 7 and Year 8.
This represents an exciting opportunity for students of all abilities to develop within a growing new community school.
We continue to provide details of the action plan on school places and progress towards achieving it.
We hope that our School Organisation Plan will provide confidence and that we will be able to reach the challenges we are facing and to ensure that there is sufficient capacity across our schools.
