'Modular' classrooms being built at Barnet school to help tackle Send places shortage

A “single storey modular nursery building” and a temporary “classroom block” are both planned for Queenswell Infant and Nursery School in Whetstone, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter

Progress so far at Queenswell Infant and Nursery School (credit Barnet Council)

Temporary facilities will be built at a Barnet primary school with the council in a race against time to create places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).

On Wednesday (15th), Barnet Council’s planning committee voted unanimously in favour of approving the construction of a “single storey modular nursery building” and a temporary “classroom block” at Queenswell Infant and Nursery School in Whetstone.

The council hopes the proposals will create an additional 35 “urgently needed Send school places for children with complex needs” for the coming school year.

The moves follows a decision signed off last month by John Anthony, the local authority’s executive director of children’s services.

The plans, which involve the commissioning of quick-build “modular” facilities, come with demand for Send places in the borough being rapidly “outstripped by projected demand”.

Indeed, the council expects Oakleigh Junior School and Mapledown Secondary School to be oversubscribed from this September onwards.

The temporary buildings at Queenswell are, according to the local authority, part of an initial phase “commencing immediately to meet the most urgent need for September 2026”. A similar phase is set to be carried out elsewhere to boost provision for September 2027 onwards.

The site, home to both Queenswell Infant and Nursery School and Queenswell Junior School, will host a “U-shaped” single storey Send building. The classroom facilities will be built on a “grassed area to the east” of the infant and nursery school and are set to remain for “a temporary period of five years”.

The “modular nursery building”, which will also be single storey, is set to be constructed nearby and will require car and minibus parking as well as alterations to internal access roads. Both buildings will consist of “interlocking module ‘units’ finished with vertical wood effect cladding in tea green colour”

A council report published ahead of the decision noted that the local authority’s “preferred permanent solution is to develop a new 380 place Send school” but argued that “present feasibility studies” and the lack of a suitable site location “means delivery is not anticipated until 2029 at its earliest”.

Rapidly growing need for special needs provision is not limited to Barnet. A Department for Education (DfE) report published last month revealed that the number of pupils with Send support had increased by 33% nationally since 2016, with a further 2.8% rise in 2025/26.

At the same time, government funding for local authorities providing Send places has lagged behind demand. Last year, London Councils warned that almost half of the capital’s local authorities were at “heightened risk” of bankruptcy due to insufficient government funding.

In May, Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson pledged to “fight” to ensure Barnet’s Send children get the “school places and government support they need”.

A report published in relation to the executive director of children’s services decision last month said the emergency building projects are expected to be paid for through grant funding from the DfE.

The contract for the works is expected to go to Wernick Buildings. The business is part The Werner Group, which describes itself as a group of companies specialising in the “sale and hire of permanent and temporary modular buildings, site accommodation and off-grid power solutions”.

Local news needs your support

We are proud that we were at the forefront of reporting on the recent local elections. We can’t do this without the support of our readers.

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

ACT NOW!

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else. £84 annual supporters get a print copy by post and a digital copy of each month's before anyone else.