PRIVATELY educated pupils could be shunted down the priority list in a shake-up of the admissions policy for Ilkley Grammar School, regardless of where in Wharfedale they live.

Schools bosses are looking at a range of ways to tackle the school’s overcrowding problem.

They include introducing named schools – similar to feeder schools – which would see listed primaries in the highest priority areas given an advantage in terms of their pupils’ admission chances.

And Bradford’s assistant director for learning services, Sue Colman, told anxious parents at a meeting of Burley-in-Wharfedale Neighbourhood Forum last week that only state schools could be put on such a list.

Explaining that the council was still trying to decide how to proceed after the Government’s axing of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which would have seen a new and bigger IGS created, she read out a letter from school head Gillian James.

It said: “Until there is clarity about the Government’s capital spending plans we cannot offer any certainty about any possibility of expanding capacity.

“We now have six temporary classrooms and the latest one has further reduced our play space. I have great sympathy with prospective parents.

“(Admissions for) 2011 does appear manageable. There remains, however, a pressing need for a longer term solution to provide some certainty for Burley and Addingham parents.”

Mrs Colman told the meeting: “I know you’re very concerned. We haven’t got sufficient places in the district, it’s a crisis for us and we need to address it. Many of our schools are in buildings that need to be refurbished and IGS is a case in point.

“We know the conditions at the school are not as good as we’d want them to be, despite the governors’ best efforts, and they are really concerned. A new-build is the only real answer, however in the meantime we’re thinking of how we could do it differently.

“We need to make a slightly longer-term plan about how we go forward to accommodate those children that are coming through.

“It’s a long processs but I intend to do a consultation and the sort of things we might look at are reviewing the priority area boundaries and consider naming schools within a priority area, so the children who attended those schools – and also lived in priority area one – would have a slightly higher chance of being slightly up the list.

“Named schools can only be state schools, so the 20 or so pupils per year we get applying from independent schools would not get that priority.”

She said that once the shortlist of options had been agreed it would be sent to headteachers to be distributed to parents for feedback. “As I look down the years”, she said, “we don’t want to be in this position where people are constantly worried.

“I’ve met with the heads of the primary schools in the valley and with Gillian James. We have to consult now, and into the Christmas period and over the New Year, so I can present the recommendation to the council’s executive.”

One mother said IGS had a special place in many chidren’s hearts in Burley, apart from its academic credentials. She said: “Our children, from year 3, start going to IGS and they make connections and have links.

“There are all these strong links but already our children are getting worried because they don’t know if they’re going to go to Ilkley.”

Mrs Colman agreed, meanwhile, with a suggestion that moving IGS’s sixth form to a new site in the town was also “the kind of thing that will have to be considered”.

The new admissions criteria is due to be in place by next September, and will apply to applications to IGS for 2012.

There was upset earlier this year when pupils from Addingham and Burley, which are both classed as ‘priority one’ areas by Bradford Council, were originally allocated to schools in Airedale due to the growing pressure for places at Ilkley.

Independent schools in or near Ilkley include Westville House, Moorfield School for Girls, and Ghyll Royd School & Nursery, at Burley.