A PRIMARY school in the west of York desperately needs more space, and council bosses are looking at using temporary classrooms to fill the gap.

Acomb Primary School is running out of classrooms for growing numbers of pupils, and next week a senior city councillor is likely to approve two temporary classrooms to make sure the school has enough room for all its pupils, and a well-used out of school club can keep running.

A report prepared for City of York’s executive member for education Cllr Stuart Rawlings shows that Acomb Primary took in an extra 15 pupils this year, as a one-off “bulge year”, to make sure children did not have to travel a long way for school and siblings did not have to be split up.

Demand for school places had been rising in the west of the city, education staff said, and by this September there was no extra capacity in primary schools across the area.

Although the 15 extra pupils could be accommodated in the Reception classrooms this year, the year group will need more space as it moves up through the school.

On top of an already growing school roll, this means Acomb primary needs two more classrooms, but the one existing spare classroom is already being used by the out-of-school club.

Cllr Rawlings is being asked to approve a £300,000 double classroom temporary building, to make sure the out-of-school club can continue and the school has the space it needs.

A public decision sessions will be held to confirm the decision on Tuesday, January 24, but the report says that if further expansion is needed council staff will have to speak to people in the community and schools across the city.

Expansion is already going on in primary schools elsewhere in the city, for example at Scarcroft Primary School where internal “remodelling” is making room for 15 extra pupils in each intake.