Schools in the south of the city are predicted to be those most affected
A report set to go before Peterborough City Council has outlined how school admissions are likely to become oversubscribed in the city’s growing southern townships in the near future.
On Monday (March 16), the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee will hear a forecast of how pressures on school admissions will affect both primary and secondary schools across the city over the coming years.
The report, which has been authored by Libby Walker, head of the council’s Admissions, Attendance & Transport Services, has outlined the Hamptons as an area where these pressures are most likely to be highest.
The data used to create the report forecasts primary school admission figures across the city’s north, central, west, Hamptons, Ortons, rural east, rural west, and Stanground/Fletton/Woodston areas.
Tables in the report show primary schools in the Hamptons will have by far the largest projected pressure over the next four years, with around 111 Reception pupils above capacity, indicating a significant shortfall in places by 2028/29.
Secondary school admission figures are set within the north, south and central planning areas of the city.
Once again, figures illustrate the south (Hamptons and Great Haddon) as showing significant and increasing pressure over the same period, rising sharply to 201 Year 7 pupils above capacity by 2028/29.
The figures are a reflection of the recent population growth across the south of the city, with significant expansion of residential developments seen across the Hamptons and Great Haddon – areas that are still continuing to grow.
Earlier this year, the council confirmed that Great Haddon Secondary School (GHSS) will be opening in 2029. Similarly, the ground has already been broken on the 420-place Great Haddon Primary School, which is set to open in January 2027.
The forecasts featured within the report were created by using each city school’s Published Admissions Number (PAN), essentially the number of places a school has available to allocate. This number is based on the school’s net capacity, which is determined via assessment by the Department for Education.
Adhering to each school’s PAN, priority in Peterborough admissions is given first to children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school, followed by looked-after or previously looked-after children, then children in the school’s catchment area (especially those with siblings already attending), children of staff, and finally other applicants outside the catchment area.
When there are more applications than places, schools use oversubscription criteria to decide priority. If a child is not offered a place, they are placed on a waiting list ranked according to the same criteria.
Using data sourced from Primary & Secondary National Offer days, the report shows that the number of applications to primary schools (reception class) across Peterborough as a whole has actually decreased steadily over the past five years, dropping from 3315 in 2020 to 2498 in 2025.
Over the same period however, the number of applications to the city’s secondary schools (Year 7) has risen, from 2763 to 2926.
Ms Walker explains this in the report: “Nationally, the birth rate has fallen within the UK and this has created place issues for primary schools due to falling rolls.
“However, migration into the city has meant that as yet, we have not seen the same issues within secondary schools and have had to create additional places year-on-year into secondary schools to be able to meet demand.”