Up to six primary schools could have been closed as part of measures to tackle surplus places across Brighton and Hove, councillors were told.
The revelation came during a debate about Brighton and Hove City Council’s budget for the 2024-25 financial year which is due to be set next week.
Councillors were speaking about the proposed closure of two primary schools in August – St Bartholomew’s Church of England (CofE) Primary, in Ann Street, Brighton, and St Peter’s Community Primary and Nursery School, in St Peter’s Road, Portslade.
The other schools at risk of closure were not named during the debate but, when the latest allocations for last September were announced, six more primaries offered fewer Reception Year places than would fill a class of 30.
They were Moulsecoomb Primary, which is an academy and outside the council’s control, Coombe Road Primary, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary, St Mark’s CofE Primary, St Martin’s CofE Primary and St Mary Magdalen Catholic Primary.
Last month, councillors agreed to cut the published admission number (PAN) from September next year at six schools – Brunswick, Goldstone, St Luke’s and Saltdean primary schools and Patcham and Stanford infant schools.
The move is aimed at trying to head off the need for more schools to shut although it may not be possible to rule out further closures.
Councillors were also told that the proposed closure of St Bart’s and St Peter’s would cost the council more than £400,000 although the cost of keeping them open could have been higher.
The discussion took place at a meeting of the council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (8 February).
Anusree Biswas Sasidharan, a co-opted member of the committee, asked whether a citywide approach to hundreds of surplus school places in Brighton and Hove could protect the two primaries from closure.
Dr Biswas Sasidharan said that the two schools likely to close had a high percentage of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, with special educational needs and youngsters from ethnic minorities, who would be affected by the closures.
She said: “This situation has evolved over years. It did not happen this year (or) last year. It’s probably (been) six or seven years in the making. This is a citywide issue – not just these two schools, St Bartholomew’s and St Peter’s.
“When schools in more affluent areas in years past have faced suggestions of cutting their classes, they’ve risen up, where people from affluent neighbourhoods are able to navigate the system and challenge it.”
She wanted the council to halt the closures and focus on reducing admissions at bigger primary schools but this alone would not solve the problem, according to the administration.
Councillors were told that were currently 2,610 Reception Year places in Brighton and Hove but, by 2027, there would be just 1,700 children starting school.
Even in September next year, without the current proposed reductions and closures there would be 651 unfilled reception places across the city.
Councillor Sankey agreed about the need for a citywide approach. She said: “One assessment of our situation when it comes to schools in the city is we should be proposing closing six of them.
“Now, we as an administration are very keen to try to minimise school closures which is why we have gone for this package of measures in our proposals.
“(The proposals) predominantly look at reducing PANs which is the key thing to ensuring that there aren’t some areas that fare worse from the proposals.
“We absolutely recognise there can be real winners and losers given the way the system is set up which means local authorities don’t have a huge amount of control.
“PAN reductions have been resisted in the past in the city and that makes things really difficult.”
Labour councillor Jacob Taylor, who co-chairs the council’s Children, Families and Schools Committee, said: “The last administration did try to reduce PANs at some of the larger schools.
“Some of them got through, some of them were successfully appealed (and) some were abandoned based on opposition from parent groups.”
Councillor Taylor, who is also deputy leader of the council, said that the aim was to reduce the intake at larger schools when and where possible.
But he added: “In reality, those schools that have the larger intakes tend to be in slightly less disadvantaged areas or more affluent areas.”
Labour councillor Alan Robins, who represents South Portslade, said that the proposal to close St Peter’s had taken him on an “emotional roller coaster”.
He was born in a neighbouring street, started at the school when he was five years old and had since served on the school’s board of governors.
When he was the mayor of Brighton and Hove, from 2020 to 2022, pupils from St Peter’s had designed his Christmas cards.
Sounding audibly upset, Councillor Robins said: “I kissed my mum at the gate … and the idea that’s going to close has broken my heart.
“I know the conversations I’ve had with Bella and Jacob to try to find a resolution, believe me. It’s not been taken in any way lightly.”
Councillor Taylor spoke about the double whammy of falling pupil numbers and rising costs on schools’ budgets, with more than half of local primary schools in deficit.
Schools receive a mix of basic funding and £4,655 a pupil, meaning that smaller schools must manage many of the same sorts of fixed costs but with a smaller budget.
He cited Schools Week, which publishes education sector news, saying that the proportion of council primaries in deficit rose from 7.6 per cent in 2021-22 to 12.3 per cent in 2022-23.
The publication said that more than 40 per cent of primary schools had a deficit in two London boroughs – Havering and Westminster – and in Brighton and Hove.
In Brighton and Hove, the proportion is more than half and the city is believed to have the highest proportion of schools in the red in the whole country.
The “licensed deficits” in the current financial year totalled £4.39 million just less than the £4.54 million surplus at the end of 2022-23, the most recent full financial year.
If too many schools go into the red, the council has to make up the shortfall in the schools budget from the general fund which includes council tax receipts.
The consultations about the proposed closure of St Bart’s and St Peter’s is on the council’s website and closes on Tuesday 20 February.
To fill a class of 30? Shame on you! What on earth is going on?
Close all faith schools
This is complete nonsense from Labour, as is usual on this subject. The previous approach they’ve junked seemed to have been to reduce the size of multiple schools to ensure none have to close. The only way 6 have to close is the slash and burn approach Labour are taking.
Tories have been in charge for 14 years Linda.
I mean, it’s not. There’s a very real threat to their sustainability; reading into this there has been 6-7 years of this coming.
Amen
The issue is hosting costs. It’s not affordable for normal people with children to live here. The smaller schools should just be closed down.. those children aren’t coming back any time soon.
I think housing stock, and it’s scarcity, is a very important point to make.
Whilst there is only so much that can be done to stem the losses from the schools, the ultimate solution is ensuring their is enough affordable social housing nearby to fill the 1,000 or so unfulfilled seats.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a central government with a housing plan at the moment, so the sooner they exit, the better, in my opinion.
It’s all coming out now. Labour don’t care about kids, families or schools. It’s all about selling the sites off to fill their financial black holes.
You can’t use a capital receipt to support the revenue budget. Because the next year the gap will still be there and again the year after that and so on.
Besides the schools budget is ringfenced from the rest of the revenue budget.
That’s not how that works Barry, and you know this…
Amen
I am shocked as to the fact that many of the schools to be closed are faith schools !
Small primary schools are essential as they are able to nurture children more
. Reception should only have a maximum of 20 children in a class to ensure they get plenty of attention and learn better
I am disgusted with what is happening in education right now .
I have taught for 50 years and still working part time providing maths intervention. The number of pupils coming into secondary who can’t hold a pen properly, can’t use a ruler, don’t know their times tables , can’t read, can’t spell and already turned off is a result of being lost in large classes in infant years and not enough support in class.
Small community schools are essential
If you close local schools parents then have to travel everyday further away from their home which affects them!
Faith schools are necessary in the community as they seem to be those which have values, respect , better behaviour.
I know budgets in all councils are tight but please think about children more and not just how they can seek off land and build more houses !
You said the thing!
In seriousness though, if faith schools are creating better behaved children, is that perhaps a gap in social education? We teach them to read and write, but are we failing to teach debate, kindness, and decorum?
It is more than just a question of closing the faith schools.
The Council forget that faith schools are supported by their communities of church goers with extra curricular activities, and the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton (the Catholic schools) and the Chichester Diocese (not sure of the name for the CofE. one), whom all actually pay for much of the upkeep for their buildings, own most or all of them and the land they stand on.
The church communities who send their children to these schools also play their part in supporting their schools and the learning and social aspects involved.
Some of this decrease in numbers of pupils is accounted for by less church going families these days, but all those who want to close faith schools do not realise they will have a larger financial burden to bear as a result of the church communities no longer supporting their schools in their running, once they close.
St. Pancras Catholic School in Lewes is closing this year. The churches can sell their buildings and land off, but that will leave the council in an even bigger hole, to be paid for by tax payers.
Rather than a cost cutting exercise, this will amount in the Council having to dig even deeper into their coffers to then add the extra classrooms and support the displaced children of the future!
Amen
What about Hertford Road infant school? Going to close in September and the children are being transferred to the Junior school where extra classrooms are being built.
This has been very quietly introduced and I wonder how many Hollingdean residents are actually aware of the closure. There was supposed to be a Consultation Paper but, as a resident of Hertford Road, I received nothing from the council or from the school. How many people were actually informed and consulted? The school has an excellent Ofsted rating and is known for its caring environment for young vulnerable children just starting their school lives.
If schools around the Lewes Road, Moulescoombe and
Hollingdean area are closed where are our children supposed to go for their education? B&H Council, whoever is in charge, are only interested in students who use our facilities and are just passing through! What about local children and families?! Please think again about these closures.
One last point, I bet the land in Hertford Road will be sold off for student accommodation! As if there weren’t enough student tower blocks around this area! Watch this space!
It’s a shame they are willing to break government policies to close these two schools. Shameful.
When I met Jacob and Bella in December they told me this. They said they were advised by an education think tank (*coughs* hmmm, not said company by the councillor on the committee I wonder) to close six schools. Publicising this makes it sound like they’re “doing us a favour”. Jacob said this was confidential information so wonder why they are issuing this now. Hmmm, let me guess. Preparing the ground for what’s to come? Well best get prepared because you don’t know what you have unleashed. Breaking government policy is never a good look. Tick tock.
Is it just me or is it they are picking on church of England schools , I would like to here what the church priests say about this , this is victimisation and selfish from the lefty looneys labour council, where the hell will they protentally put over 1800 plus children plus children from nursery groups .
There would not be enough places for them as they are reducing by 10 percent in each school so in total your looking at maybe 2500 displacement kids.
The council would probably say take your kids to a school out of Brighton pluswe would have to pay for transport!!!!! .
SO COME ON COUNCIL get your fingers out and protect our children education and schools.
And save St Bartholomews school
The council are closing the church schools, so St Bartholomews has had a school since the year dot. It started off in Providence Place with extended school hall opposite, If the council was to stop building flats for the students and pushing the families out of the town then the school would stay open. It is to fill their own pockets not to help anybody. Where are these children ment to be schooled now!!!!!