As a parent at Fairlawn and knowing of families that have been offered places in this year's 'bulge' class, hopefully I can add something to the discussion.

Indeed, the schools you mention we asked by the LEA to take a bulge class each. I don't know how much was 'volunteered' and how much was mandatory, but the benefit of a school taking a bulge class is the capital investment that is provided by the authority in order to upgrade the facilities for the incoming bulge and also generally around the school. So there are benefits to the school of taking an extra class.

In Fairlawn's case, the last bulge year (which is the year my son is in) will be going up to the junior school in September, which will allow the infant facilities to carry on at the same rate of use as they have been over the last 3 years, so the existing infants will not notice a difference. When it comes to whole school events (assembly etc) things may be a bit tight, but i understand that many assemblies are already divided into infant and junior. I don't think Fairlawn for one could fit in another bulge next year though. Kilmorie and Haseltine have bigger buildings and premises, I think.

In terms of parents applying for schools further afield or accepting other places, from what I can gather the schools have filled the bulge classes by working through the waiting list. As parents can stay on a waiting list for a school even if they have accepted another place, what this means is that a parent who has accepted a place further away at another school, can now have the opportunity to take a place at fairlawn/kilmorie/haseltine, and release the other place, which will in turn free up spaces at those schools for other families. So in effect it will work like the 'shakedown' process that happened earlier in the year, and parents who didn't get a place first time around shouldn't be at a disadvantage. And also it means that the furthest distance from the school shouldn't change that drastically, in terms of siblings in future years.

Admittedly this has all happened VERY late in the day and isn't ideal for anyone (the school included who now need to source staff/accommodation and sort all the admin over the summer break), and I don't know why Lewisham waited so long - surely they knew that 267 pupils didn't have a place at the end of March. Or were they just crossing their fingers and hoping they would go away?