A Leeds high school has opened its doors to children as young as four to help cope with the city’s rising birth rate.
Carr Manor Community School has become one of Leeds’s first ‘through schools’.
The school will now accept pupils from the age of four until they are 16 or 18 in a bid to ease the pressure on over-subscribed local primary schools.
Pupils at the school welcomed 30 new starters – all aged four – into the new reception facility.
Youngsters who are in the new reception phase, which is in a separate block to the secondary school pupils, are guaranteed a place in the school’s secondary phase.
Principal Simon Flowers, said “We take pride in personalising the curriculum and learning experience for pupils as far as possible and in working towards the following three key aims.
“We want to know our children well, enjoy and achieve and become partners in learning.
“The opening of the through school presents us with the unique opportunity to develop even closer partnerships with our families and the wider community as a whole.”
Over the past few months work has taken place to create a new, purpose built primary building, located adjacent to the current high school buildings.
Charlotte Wightman, early years phase leader, added: “We see ourselves very much as part of a community and the primary phase of the building will be no different.
“We will endeavour to ensure that the children in Carr Manor Community School not only see them selves as part of a primary or high school but that of a ‘through school’ where the children and staff support each other regardless of their age or year group.”
Roundhay High accepted a new intake of primary-aged pupils this month when it also became a ‘through-school’ with an age range of four to 18.
Leeds City Council believes it will need 11,000 extra primary school places by 2015.
The council’s executive board agreed to invest over £9.5m in total to expand four schools, including Carr Manor High And Roundhay School.
Extensions will be built at Bracken Edge and Wykebeck primaries
The investment is part of a city-wide programme to meet increasing demand for places, caused by a rising birth rate and numbers of families moving into certain areas of the city.
Since 2009, 560 extra reception places have been created across Leeds and the council estimates 300 to 400 places will need to be created every year to cope with demand.
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