School catchment change for Chase Farm estate scrapped after concerns about 'unfair' sibling splitting

Parents on the Chase Farm development in Gedling could have ended up with their children at different schools

Nottinghamshire County Council has had to reverse changes it made to a school's catchment area after complaints that they were "unfair" to parents on a new housing estate. Nottinghamshire County Council had removed those on the Chase Farm development in Gedling from the Lambley Primary School's catchment area.

Parents there objected to the change, which would have affected the academic year beginning in September 2025. With admissions for that school year opening on November 11, the county council has now brought Chase Farm back into Lambley Primary School's catchment after a ruling by the Officer of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA).

The OSA said it was concerned about families at Chase Farm who already have children at Lambley and who could have ended up having to send children yet to start school elsewhere. The OSA said: "The result of the change to the school's catchment is that the group of parents under discussion are likely to be in a position where their application to the school for 2025 is unsuccessful and their child is offered a place at their new catchment school.

"The parent is then faced with having their young children at different schools, with all of the logistical challenges that this brings... The change to the catchment area has brought about an unintended unfairness to the group of parents and children discussed above and the oversubscription criteria in the arrangements are therefore in breach of the code and must be revised.

"The revision must address the unfairness caused and support the affected families to be able to have their children attend the same school." Oversubscription criteria is the system used when schools have received more interest than the places they have available.

Parents opposing the change said although having siblings in the same school is a key consideration in oversubscription criteria, they would be disadvantaged by no longer being in the catchment area. The Chase Farm development will eventually comprise 1,050 homes when it is completed in 2026, with hundreds of homes having already been built.

In terms of why it wanted to exclude Chase Farm from Lambley's catchment area, Nottinghamshire County Council said: "The council considers that it is no longer appropriate for the Chase Farm development to only be in the catchment areas for Lambley Primary School and All Hallows C of E Primary School, due to there being insufficient capacity at the two schools to educate all the pupils who are living, and are projected to be living, on the development."

The Conservative-led authority also said there was projected to be a surplus of primary school places in Carlton over the coming years, and that Chase Farm's catchment area should therefore include the Stanhope Primary and Nursery School, Phoenix Infant and Nursery School and Priory Junior School instead. Following the OSA's ruling, the council has confirmed that Lambley's catchment area once again includes Chase Farm.

Lambley Primary School has a capacity of 210 and there are currently 173 children on the roll, split into seven classes. The initial agreement for the Chase Farm development, at the former Gedling Colliery site, included the building of a new primary school.

It was then announced in 2023 that money would instead be spent on expanding existing secondary schools in a move which left parents "really disappointed". The original primary school plan for Chase Farm would have seen a new facility offering 210 school places.