Two Gosforth schools are set for significant expansions in order to cope with an escalating demand for places in Newcastle.
Temporary classrooms will have to be built at Gosforth Central Middle School (GCMS) this summer to ensure it has enough space for all of its pupils come the start of the new term in September, while city planners are mulling over a permanent expansion of the site. Meanwhile, Gosforth Park First School will substantially up its intake from 2023 once it takes over the former Broadway East First School site after the latter moved to a new base on the Newcastle Great Park estate.
There have been warnings for years that Newcastle is going to need thousands of extra school places by 2030 to deal with the demand caused by new housing estates being built on the northern and western edges of the city. Estimates in 2019 predicated that education chiefs would need to create 4,500 school places across all age ranges in the following decade.
