Councillors are expected to agree to close two schools from the end of August because of falling pupil numbers.
Parents and supporters have carried out vocal campaigns to try to prevent the closure of St Bartholomew’s Church of England Primary School, in Brighton, and St Peter’s Community Primary and Nursery School, in Portslade.
Brighton and Hove City Council is proposing to close the schools as it aims to reduce the number of surplus places in primary and infant schools.
A report to the council’s Children, Families and Schools Committee said that those who responded to the six-week public consultation disagreed with the proposals to close the two smallest state schools in the area.
There were 327 responses to the consultation about the proposed closure of St Bartholomew’s, in Ann Street, Brighton, with 273 or 83.5 per cent strongly disagreeing that the school should close.
For St Peter’s, in St Peter’s Road, Portslade, 313 people responded to the consultation, with 265 or 85 per cent strongly disagreeing with the proposed closure.
Councillors are being asked to give statutory notice of closure at a meeting of the Children, Families and Schools Committee which is due to take place next Monday (22 January).
If they agree, this would trigger a four-week period, starting the next day until Tuesday 20 February, when interested parties can comment.
A further report would then go to a special meeting of the Children, Families and Schools Committee on Thursday 29 February, with a final decision to be made by a special meeting of the full council on Monday 4 March.
Those objecting to the proposed school closures in the initial consultation said that the council’s approach was “short term” and questioned the accuracy of the pupil forecasts.
The report prepared for the coming Children, Families and Schools Committee meeting said that those responding to the consultation said that children would benefit from smaller class sizes.
Concerns were also raised about the alternative options. Families of pupils at St Bartholomew’s wanted to ensure that their children would be able to attend a Church of England school.
The reasons given for closing St Bartholomew’s is that it has the second lowest number of pupils on the roll, with 135 pupil out of a possible 210 places. The school is also £205,000 in the red.
Families with children at St Peter’s were worried about alternative nursery places for children with siblings in other year groups which is a particular issues for families who live in West Sussex.
There was also scepticism about the availability of alternative places in the Portslade area.
The reason given for choosing to close the school is that St Peter’s has the lowest number of children in reception to year six out of all primary schools in Brighton and Hove, with 69 pupils on the roll as of Monday 8 January.
Pupil numbers are only so low because the council stuck a dagger in with no real information on the process. The lack of school places in the area specifically children entering year 2 & 6 so people left. Not to mention the timing schools would be recruiting for 2024 students to join the school. Shameful. Tacky move.
Jeez. It didn’t take long for newly elected Labour Councillor Josh Guilmant to betray his electorate. And after all those by-election promises of a Labour review of the St Peters closure if he got in only last Thursday. But then he
already proved he runs away from angry parents rather than engaging. Let’s have some council honesty. This school has been deliberately run down in pupil numbers because BHCC want the ‘site’ for other purposes and they don’t give a monkeys about local children and their parents.
What are you on about? He has no input in this already existing process. Seriously, you want to complain about something, fine, but don’t just make stuff up disingenuously. It comes across as very Tory.
In other words you admit that Labour Councillors have no power in their own Ward. Not even to promise a review on a school closure IN THEIR WARD. Small wonder only 21 percent of the electorate bothered to vote if that is the case and their candidate is nothing more than a puppet whose strings are pulled from on high.
The pupil numbers are dropping because you didn’t provide the right information and did it all at the wrong time when parents would be applying for a reception school place not been dealt with very well at all leaving children and teachers in a crisis and parents very angry .