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A SHORTAGE of Ilkley Grammar School places could lead to the death of Addingham as a community, a village parent has warned.

The bombshell that for the first time ever Addingham children have been turned away from Ilkley's popular comprehensive was debated at the latest parish council meeting.

Parish councillors voted to be at the forefront of any struggle to demand that local children should not have to be educated in Keighley. At least ten village children were turned down for a place at Ilkley Grammar this year. Following a shake-up of numbers or appeal panel hearings, all the children are now expected to get into the school this year but the crisis threatens to be repeated each summer.

Councillor Ian Taylor said: "I think as a parish council we want to be at the forefront of the campaign."

Parent Nigel Muttick said: "I am pleased the council has decided to do something about it. You could be in a position where the school (Addingham Primary) is half-full.

"People are thinking about moving out of Addingham. They are forced into a corner to move to Ilkley so their children can get into the school. We will be in a community where there are no children in the village because they won't send them to the school.

"Unless the council fights this we won't be a community."

By coincidence, Addingham Parish Council was in the middle of seeking reassurances that village children would all be able to get a place at the local primary school when parents found out about the latest crisis.

The school, on Bolton Road, wants to limit its intake numbers but councillors want guarantees that no village children will lose out regardless of the circumstances in any given year.

Councillor Alan Jerome said that as far as the Ilkley Grammar situation was concerned, education bosses should plan ahead to ensure that all the children from Addingham would in future be guaranteed a place at the Grammar School.

He said: "Parents must be going through a living nightmare until the situation is resolved. We should be moving heaven and earth so the forward planning department can equate the numbers of children in the village to the numbers that Ilkley Grammar can accept.

"We have to pressure the appeals panel to realise that the numbers they are working on are wrong and unfair."

Parish council chairman Gordon Campbell said he would be meeting education bosses soon to try to find a long-term solution to the problem.

Members suggested changes to the admission letters to Ilkley Grammar School so that parents offered places for their children had to respond saying whether they intended to take the place or not, or whether their child intended going to another school.

That way, a more realistic calculation of numbers could be made by education bosses and children would not have to lose out when places were available.

2:39pm Thursday 27th March 2008

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