PRESSURES for primary school places in Bradford will ease in the next few years, but councillors have been warned that pressures on secondary schools will get much worse.

By 2018 two new secondary schools would be needed to ease the increasing pressure for space faced by existing schools, as the "bulge" years passing through primary schools move up.

Bradford Council's Children's Services Scrutiny Committee met last night, and one of the items they discussed were school admissions, and one member suggested schools could close their sixth form provision to make the extra space needed.

An annual report on school admissions and the associated pressures showed that Bradford will have its highest ever number of children of the age to start primary school this September, 8,782. This is up from just over 7,700 in 2009.

Speaking at the meeting, Lynda Mason, assistant director for education at the council said despite this high figure the pressure would soon ease as work continues to expand primary schools capacity. She also pointed out that the number of reception aged children sees to have peaked - there are only 8,382 three year olds, and 8,123 newborns in the district.

The council has also increased pupil capacity at 46 primary schools since 2010.

Mrs Mason told the committee: "The pressures on primary school places should diminish in the next 12 to 24 months.

"The biggest pressure for us going forward will be secondary school places. We are already starting to experience the pressure of finding places for Year 7s in 2016. We predict that by 2018 we will need two new secondary schools to account for this pressure as the bulge groups pass through school."

She said that due to a lack of funding, and government policies over new schools, any new secondary school provision would likely be a free school or academy, and added: "My colleagues are meeting with the Department for Education to discuss funding and the needs for more school places going forward."

The report presented to the committee revealed that some secondary schools had already been persuaded to increase their pupil admission numbers to help the council find more places. Samuel Lister Academy took on an extra 21 pupils, Belle Vue Girls School and extra 35 and Oasis Academy Lister Park an extra 20.

It says that there is currently particular pressure in the Idle, Fagley and Wrose areas, and many children from these areas were being sent to Samuel Lister Academy in Cottingley or Oasis Academy in Manningham.

And the committee also heard that applications for school places made by parents within the school year was also causing pressure. Last year the council had to find places for 7,000 pupils "in year," almost 1,000 of which were for children who had just arrived in the UK.

On the pressures on secondary school places, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland (Lib Dem) said: "Where are these kids going to go to school? It is 2015 now and we're talking about pressures for spaces in 2016. For kids in Thackley there is nowhere for them to go."

She suggested schools could close their sixth form provision to free up space, and sixth form colleges could instead be set up for post 16 pupils. Cllr Sunderland added: "We are one of the few remaining authorities that still have sixth forms in schools. All the highest achieving authorities have sixth form colleges. I think getting rid of sixth forms would raise attainment and solve the problem of school places."

Michael Jameson, strategic director for children's services, said: "This issue of us needing to find a significant number of school places is a big one, and I don't know what the answer is.

On the suggestion of doing away with school sixth forms, he said: "We have got to show we are using our resources to the best effect. This is a conversation I want to have with school leaders in September. We have to be effective and if sixth forms are not effective then we could use those resources to create extra capacity."