Two new schools will open their doors to help meet the rising tide of children looking for places across the borough.

Millbrook Park School, in The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, and The Marco Polo Academy, in Burnt Oak, were both approved by education secretary Michael Gove last week.

Millbrook Park will create 630 new school places and Marco Polo will admit 364 pupils by 2020. Both will welcome their first intake of pupils this September.

Last year, planning permission for the new Mill Hill East Primary School, in the former Inglis Barracks, Mill Hill, was also approved.

The £12.3million three-form entry school is also due to open in September 2014 and will offer a range of sports facilities.

Five other new primary schools across the borough have opened since 2009, creating around 900 new school places between them.

Barnet Borough Council has spent £88million on permanently expanding or rebuilding schools in the past five years, and has plans to spend a further £49million on future developments.

And since 2009, 12 primary schools have been earmarked for expansion across the borough.

Seven of these were expanded in September 2013, creating 70 new classrooms and 1,500 new school places.

Money has also been awarded for a new primary school provision to be built at the Wren Academy in North Finchley and the London Academy in Edgware.

Demand for secondary places across Barnet has also gone up - plans to expand the Compton School, Copthall School and Christ College to create an extra 450 extra places have been submitted.

In total, the developments are expected to cost £12m across all three sites.

The Archer Academy and St Andrew the Apostle Greek Orthodox Free School provided an extra 1,500 places between them when they opened last September.