Parents fight proposal to shrink Brighton infant school

A roomful of angry parents hit out at plans to shrink a Brighton infant school by cutting its intake in half last week.

Hertford Infant School is one of five primary schools in the city where the council is considering reducing the reception intake by 30 pupils.

This will halve the number of classes at Hertford Infants – and also have implications for Hertford Juniors, where most Hertford Infant pupils go on to.

More than 1,500 people have signed a petition opposing the changes – and on Thursday scores of parents and teachers attended a heated meeting with council officers in the school hall.

Parent Polly Charlton said: “I don’t understand why this school is being singled out when there are two four-form entry schools across the road.”

Jo Wilding, who started the petition, said: “At the moment, Hertford has a broad social mix, but reducing the intake will create further inequalities. Children from the wealthier areas will go to other schools, while those in social housing will stay here.”

Another parent, Ellie Gadd, said: “Education isn’t X Factor, who gets the most votes. You should look at which schools are doing the best jobs.

“It should be a priority to close the gap between social mobility in this city – you’re not doing that.”

The council’s director of families, children and learning Pinaki Goshal said: “We do not believe this school will have 60 children in the future. As a two form school, if you have 31 children applying with a first preference, you have to have two classes which becomes a financial pressure on the school. Thirty is a viable number to run a school – 31, 32, 33 children isn’t.

“As a legal body, we are required to take parental preference into consideration. We also look at patterns previously and the numbers of children who are admitted into the school.”

Headteacher Zoe McGuigan said: “Other schools are given much more second and third choice applicants to bring up their numbers. I was given two second and no third choice applicants last year, which brought down my figures overall.”

She added: “A one form entry infant school concerns me greatly – I don’t know of any others in the country.”

However, the council’s head of school organisation Richard Barker insisted that the allocations were worked out by a computer according to the published admissions criteria.

One parent voiced the suspicion that Hertford was being targeted in the hope it would eventually close, and the council would be able to sell off the land to a developer.

But Cllr Dan Chapman, chair of the children, young people and skills committee, insisted that this was not the case, stating: “This administration is absolutely committed to keeping every school open in the city.

“There are absolutely no plans to close any school or sell any school land in this city – that’s my guarantee to you.”

Mr Barker added: “We know that we will need accommodation in the future – there are a number of housing plans that will bring an estimated 1,200 extra primary aged children by 2030, and 563 by 2021.

“They won’t necessarily all be about to start reception, there will be a range of ages.”

Under the plans, Moulsecoomb Primary School will also shrink from 90 places to 60, and Coombe Road will also halve its intake, from 60 to 30.

The council report says: “It is important to recognise that the proposal to reduce the PAN of these schools does not imply any negative judgement of any school.

“Four of the five schools are judged good or better by Ofsted. Rather it is a result of needing to take a strategic oversight of the availability of spare primary places across the city and consider the pattern of parental preference alongside the geographical distribution of children in the city.

It adds: “It is anticipated that this will not be the only reductions in PAN required in the short to medium term in an effort to ensure that all of the city’s family of schools remain viable and the city’s stock of school places remain available in the longer term.