A WORRIED mum fears her daughter’s dream of joining Caversham’s new primary school will be dashed unless more parents pledge to send their children there.

Mum-of-two Jeni Carter is worried four-year-old Freya will not be able to join The Heights in September because not enough parents have signed up for the year 1 class. The school, which will open with at least two reception classes after being approved by the Department for Education in May, needs five more children to make the year 1 class viable and also faces a race against time to secure enough signatures for year 3.

Every morning Jeni makes a six mile round trip from the family home in Woodcote Road to drop Freya off at Micklands Primary School. But she now hopes Tuesday’s announcement that the Heights has secured a temporary home at the former Caversham Nursery will help boost interest.

She said: “The site’s not ideal because it’s in not the catchment, but I hope that parents can see through that and realise they will get a great location in the catchment area when it all goes ahead.

“If they don’t run the year 1 and 3 classes it’s not like next year they will say ‘we’ll try again’ - reception will be the oldest it’s going to be. For us parents who have got children who are already in a bad situation in their reception it’s very frustrating.

“We desperately need people to make that pledge and they have to do it now. People can’t think, oh I’ll wait and see how everyone else gets on at the school and then I’ll transfer - it’s now or never.”

Daniel Pagella from The Heights said the school needed to secure at least 20 children for each year group to justify hiring the teachers to teach them.

He added: “The situation with the years 1 and 3 is one we’ve never shied away from. We’re hoping now that we’ve been able to make an announcement on the location that parents will be more happy that it’s going to go ahead. The key was always to fill the reception classes, but we’d love to have year 1 and 3 classes as well."