Two-shift day and use of empty Woolworths stores among ideas to cope with surge in primary age pupils

A council in east London is drawing up plans to convert an empty Woolworths store into a classroom and teach children in two shifts, in emergency measures across Britain to cope with a dramatic increase in primary school age children.

More than 450,000 places in schools in England are needed by 2015, government figures show – partly the result of a baby boom in the past decade.

Schools have begun using every available space, including converting a caretaker's hut into a classroom and a broom cupboard into an office, and moving into council-owned office space.

The problem is most acute in London. In Barking, the number of primary age children is predicted to rise from 19,000 to more than 27,000 by 2015. In addition to the empty Woolworths, the council is looking into leasing a vacant MFI building.

It is also looking at "split shift sessions", where schools would take one group of pupils from 8am until 2pm and then a second from 2pm until 7pm. The shifts would double capacity although the council concedes parents would have great difficulty accomodating the shift patterns.

Rocky Gill, Barking and Dagenham council's cabinet member for finance and education, said "detailed plans" for shifts were being drawn up. "In two years' time we will have expanded all our primary schools. So we're going to have no choice but to move into split shift education at both primary and secondary level."

Gill feared the impact on families with children in different shifts could be "disastrous".

The demographic pressure is particularly acute in London, due to inward migration and increasing numbers of people no longer leaving the capital when they have children.

Ripple primary school in Barkinghad 4.5 applications per place last year, and is growing from three forms to five in each year after expanding into a nearby council-owned office site. By 2015 it expects to have 1,200 pupils, making it one of the biggest primaries in the country.

Initially, the school shared the new space with office workers. The headteacher, Roger Mitchell, said: "It was interesting sharing the building – we were working in the very best way we possibly could.

"It didn't really become my school until the end of February, beginning of March last year, when those people finally moved out to new accommodation. It's nice just to have my school now."

The school's expansion originally has a budget of £4.4m, but this was halved when the coalition came to power. Mitchell is also seeking an extra £3.2m to fund a permanent solution for the original school site, so 120 reception-aged children will not have to be taught in outdoor huts.

"It's not nice to have some of your youngest children taught in outside classrooms, they need a proper learning environment – one that's not too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer," he said.

While the council's strategy has been to expand school building where possible, the authority has also been exploring the possibility of commercial space.

"We've got an empty MFI building and an empty Woolworths; we're looking at speaking to those freeholders and purchasing that space or leasing it," Gill said.

Focusing on the needs of individual children becomes a sharper challenge as schools get bigger. Thelma McGorrighan, headteacher of Manor infants' school, which in September set up another three entry classes at a different site, Manor Longbridge, said: "You have to make your presence felt. Parents have to see you.

"First thing in the morning and at the end of the day, you're out there with the children – greeting the children, dealing with issues outside, keeping the parents well informed."

Parental campaigns are springing up against the expansion of existing primaries, driven by concern that standards will slip if schools become too big.

In Haringey, proposals to expand two schools, Belmont infants and Belmont junior, face resistance. School governors at the infants' school argue that the plans are "likely to jeopardise a successful school".

Victoria Harwood, a writer whose four-year-old son is a pupil at Belmont infants, said: "It's a grade 1 Ofsted school. It does well because it's so small. It's a small, intimate community school. That would change if it expands. If they try and jam-pack more kids in, I'm convinced that standards would drop."

The shortage of primary school places is a sore point for the government. Last November the education secretary, Michael Gove, confirmed that an extra £500m would be allocated to more than 100 local authorities experiencing "the most severe need", while in the autumn statement the chancellor, George Osborne, announced a further £600m for local authorities with the greatest pressure on school places. He also announced an extra £600m for free schools.

This prompted Labour to accuse Gove of lavishing money on a "pet project" rather than spending the entire £1.2bn easing the pressure on primaries.

While London faces the greatest challenge, schools elsewhere are feeling the strain. In Manchester, which will see a predicted rise from just over 37,000 primary school pupils to more than 46,000 by 2015, a headteacher said her schools were "bursting at the seams".

Lisa Vyas, headteacher of Ladybarn primary school and executive headteacher of Green End primary school, said: "Every single little space is used. We've even had to transform a little storage cupboard into the business manager's office.

"At the moment, because of the knock on effect of the dinners taking longer to serve, I now can't provide every child a gym and dance lesson because there's not enough time in the hall.

"I can't meet the PE curriculum needs because there's not enough hours in the day."

An education department spokesman said: "We're creating thousands more places to deal with the impact of soaring birth rates on primary schools. We're more than doubling targeted investment at areas facing the greatest pressure on numbers , more than £4bn in the next four years."

"We are building free schools, and letting what are the most popular schools expand so they can meet demand from parents. We are intervening to drive up standards in the weakest schools, those with thousands of empty places nationally, so they can become places where parents actually want to send their children."

The handsome border town may bid to be the UK's next World Heritage Site

While the England vs Scotland issue continues to occupy many in Berwick-upon-Tweed, forward-looking souls in the border town have set their sites higher: on global status.

Listing its wealth of ancient buildings and remarkably intact fortifications, enthusiasts for the handsome place are urging an attempt to be one of the UK's future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This is an ambitious thing to do but I can see from where I'm tapping this out, a smaller but highly successful example. People mocked when the late Jonathan Silver and others claimed that Saltaire near Bradford was worthy to rank with the Pyramids and ancient Rome. But now it does.

Berwick's counterparts of Silver & Co have just held a seminar on running a similar campaign and emerged with a mixture of optimism and caution. They have encouragingly nearby examples – Hadrian's Wall and Durham, where the castle and cathedral form two separate World Heritage Sites which, appropriately for the north, stand back to back.

The Government is also putting forward the twin monasteries of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth as its 2012 candidate to join the UK's 28 existing sites. But in Berwick, a great deal of cleaning, sprucing and blossing-up would be required.

One of the event's organisers, Bernard Shaw, takes the cautious line, saying that the sense of the meeting was that a bid in the near future would probably be unrealistic. He isn't against the idea but says:

There may be better ways to take Berwick forward, rather than something which may not be achievable. Maybe the time isn't right for the investment of time and money to invest in an objective which we might not achieve. It could be that the benefits that could come our way could be achieved more cheaply and realistically.

But the town's mayor Alan Bowlas is a more hopeful; a little. He says:

It may not be achievable, but we should probably pursue World Heritage status because I think we would pick up quite a lot of pointers on the way. It would certainly put us on the international market and improve our tourist offer in Northumberland.

Stouter hearts will be needed if the idea does go any further, but Berwick has a tradition of rising to a challenge. As well as changing hands between England and Scotland 13 times between 1482, it famously appeared as a separate party in Britain's declaration of war on Russia over the Crimea (but not in the peace treaty, to the delight of school history pupils ever since).

The meeting also heard of preliminary work on a claim to artistic fame, with Salford's L S Lowry often visiting and leaving one highly-rated painting, of Dewar's Lane.

'I worry that you think I feel superior. I don't. I feel embarrassed'

I don't want to make you feel stupid. Really. I just can't help it. However much I try to hold back, I just did have "a good education" and read a lot of books when I was young. So when there is a quiz, I will inevitably know more answers than most people in the room.

Over Christmas, I couldn't help answering all the cracker questions, and began to wish I'd kept quiet. I am aware that quite a few of you feel intimidated, belittled, or both. I worry that you think I feel superior about my general knowledge. Or that I'm judging people when they get the answer wrong. I don't, and I'm not. Actually, I feel embarrassed. What I'm thinking is, please, people, stop putting me up there for my small areas of expertise.

I'd like to think we could judge each other less for our intellectual gifts and ability to pass exams, that we've got beyond these simple and skewed views. In my turn, I am in awe of one person's musical ability, or another's skill at cooking, or their flair for design. All things that I cheerfully admit I am dismal at. I respect that these talents are equal in value to my own gifts.

I'm sorry if my achievements and abilities press your buttons. I really don't want to make anyone feel bad about themselves. I know this won't make you feel any better, but when I know the answer, I don't always say it. And if I am winning at a game, I often deliberately lose. So don't feel intimidated. If only you knew how inferior to you I really feel.

• Tell us what you're really thinking at mind@guardian.co.uk

National Audit Office says free nursery places have improved development by age five, but results at seven are unchanged

Free nursery places for pre-school children may not have a lasting impact on their education, the government's spending watchdog has suggested.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found it was not clear whether government moves to fund nursery education for three- and four-year-olds was leading to longer-term benefits.

While children's development at five has improved, results at age seven remain unchanged, it says.

Although it acknowledges that there have been changes to free nursery education, and its link to children's results at the age of seven is not "straightforward", the NAO says the Department for Education "did intend that the entitlement would have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond".

Nationally, 59% of five-year-olds achieved a good level of development in 2010/11, compared with 45% in 2005/06, the report says.

But it adds: "National key stage 1 results, however, have shown almost no improvement since 2007, so it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits."

The watchdog also warns that youngsters from poorer areas are still less likely to get access to good quality nursery care than those from wealthier homes.

In total, 95% of three- and four-year-olds are in early education – a rate that has been sustained since 2008, the report says.

But an analysis of Ofsted data, conducted by the NAO, found the percentage of good or outstanding nursery care in March last year ranged from 64% in some local authorities to 97% in others.

"Areas of highest deprivation were less likely to have high-quality provision," it found.

The NAO head, Amyas Morse, said: "The Department for Education needs to do more to put itself in the position to assess whether the forecast long-term benefits of free education for three- and four-year-olds are being achieved. It also needs to understand how the arrangements for funding providers of that early education drive its availability, take-up and quality.

"Both of these are necessary if it is to get the best return for children from the £1.9bn spent each year."

Under the scheme, all three- and four-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours of free education a week for 38 weeks a year. In January 2011, 831,800 youngsters were receiving this entitlement.

Daniela Wachsening, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: "There is absolutely no doubt that high-quality early years education makes a massive difference to children's development, and is particularly important for children from disadvantaged families.

"But the government is jeopardising the chances of disadvantaged children by cutting the grants to local authorities, which has led to the loss of high-quality early years places and drastic reductions in children's and family services to the detriment of the most vulnerable children."

The children's minister, Sarah Teather, said: "We are pleased that the NAO has recognised the progress made since we introduced free early education for three- and four-year-olds.

"There is lots more to do – and the report also sets out important national and local challenges to be addressed. We are determined to improve the availability of quality places in disadvantaged areas, and offering free early education to around 40% of two-year-olds will help by bringing even more money into the system.

"We also want to examine in more detail how to make sure the significant improvements we are seeing at five feed through into better results at seven."

Hockney On Paper sale at Christie's to include etchings inspired by Hogarth, 1954 lithograph and work from his time in America

The past few years have seen David Hockney experimenting with iPads and iPhones, but an auction at Christie's in London will focus on work made with the most basic of art materials. Hockney on Paper will see almost 150 works go under the hammer, from the artist's 1954 lithograph of a fish and chip shop owned by friends of his parents in Bradford, to photomontages of the 1980s.

The sale, on 17 February, will feature numerous works from the artist's years in America, including a set of 16 etchings based on Hogarth's The Rake's Progress and others inspired by the young Hockney's experiences in New York. The etchings are expected to sell for between £150,000 and £200,000, with the whole auction estimated at £1m. On Monday Hockney visited the Royal College of Art in London (RCA), where he graduated 50 years ago, as part of its 175th anniversary celebrations. He told the Guardian: "Drawing and painting was the centre of the old college and I don't know whether it is now, but I always think the phrase 'back to the drawing board' tells you something, doesn't it? Drawing – it's still there. Nothing's altered in that way."

The auction will feature the 1962 sketch The Diploma, which Hockney drew in protest when the RCA said it would not let him graduate. He had refused to write the essay required for the final examination, stating that he should be assessed solely on his artworks. Recognising his talent and growing reputation, the RCA changed its regulations and awarded the diploma.

Hockney's current show at London's Royal Academy has received huge public acclaim, with all advance tickets sold out, though some critics have been less enthusiastic. Hockney said he had watched the reaction unfold on Twitter, although he did not tweet himself.

He said: "The show is actually one enormous piece, and people who don't get that pick out bits and little points – not very smart, really. Especially for a landscape show, if people are queueing for it, it tells you something. We're very, very pleased with the response – and I'm not complaining about the press. Of course not. It doesn't matter what they say either."