England has immigrants with high birth rates so we need more schools. What's the answer.
Several solutions to consider. Build on wasteland. (Not green belt land. Unused land. Under bridges. Derelict land.)
Use public libraries more, especially at evenings and weekends or days when they are normally closed. Run alternative schools in school holidays for catch up on English and activities like art and sports.
Run two sittings in schools like Singapore did. One operates rom 7 am until 1pm, a second from 2 pm until 8 pm.
Have a system where you can take an exam after a certain number of school day or hours of learning credits. Children who are ill or keen can take extra hours of supervised homework and take self-administered tests early to do exams early and free up places.
Run a system for filling up places when pupils are away sick or on planned holidays, so children otherwise at home can go to any school which has a free place and use a token to 'buy' a day's lessons at that school.
Find schools with shorter terms and run extra days at the school.
Bring retired teachers back to work at schools full time.
Encourage more people to teach their own children at home. They can follow set books. Allocate a weekend hour, or a weekend holiday in a school and amonthly test at home or in school to use school equipments and socialise.
Have children who are sick or have poor English watching lessons on computers at home. Supplement and check on their progress with end of the day catch up lessons.
Call volunteers to run English language classes in churches and mosques and synagogues for immigrants - in exchange for translation of documents into their languages.
Angela Lansbury, blogger, author, speaker.
