§ MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)To ask the President of the Board of Education if he has received Reports from His Majesty's inspectors as to overcrowding in West Ham schools; whether these Reports include the presence of 100 children in a room accommodating sixty-two at the S. Hallsville girls school on 30th May last, and of 102 children in a room accommodating sixty at the North Street boys' school on 28th May; whether it has been reported to him that about the above-mentioned dates there were more than fifty class rooms grossly overcrowded in West Ham public elementary schools, and that this state of things continues without diminution; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
(Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I am informed that there is considerable overcrowding in some of the class rooms in the West Ham schools, and those mentioned in the question are among the number. The causes to which this overcrowding may be attributed appear to be:
The overcrowding of public elementary schools at this time of the year is not unusual, and is not peculiar to West Ham. Many other authorities have found 594 similar difficulties in preventing temporary overcrowding at the time when promotions from the infants' school take place. I am suggesting to the West Ham local authority the advisability of changing the date of the education year to 1st August, which I am advised would do much to lessen the difficulties, and I am further asking them to consider the advisability of adding the class room to certain of the schools where the pressure is most acute.
- (1)At the beginning of the educational year, which in West Ham is the 1st April, there is a large influx of children promoted from the infants' schools into the boys' and girls' schools, while the corresponding efflux of scholars due to their leaving school does not take place to any considerable extent until the summer holidays.
- (2)Many of the boys' and girls' schools were built with five class rooms only, when the number of scholars in the higher classes was small. The raising of the age and standard for total exemption has caused a large increase, and these classes have now to be sub-divided. In these schools an additional class room seems to be required.
- (3) The rapid growth of the population in the district makes it extremely difficult for the local education authority to keep pace with it.