An infant school has won its appeal against a decision by the council to reduce its intake by a class from September next year.
Governors at Patcham Infant School, in Highview Avenue South, appealed to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator against Brighton and Hove City Council’s decision to reduce its reception classes from three to two.
The governors said that the consultation carried out last November and December had been “flawed” because people were not consulted effectively.
They also said that the reduced “published admission number” (PAN) of 60 pupils would frustrate parental choice and threaten the school’s financial viability.
The governors’ objections included
- An inability to submit questions to the now-defunct Children, Families and Schools Committee where councillors approved the public consultation
- A conflict of interest because a councillor who was chair of governors at a school that would benefit from fewer children starting at Patcham Infant School did not “recuse himself from discussions”
- The complexity of the online questionnaire
- A pairing of Patcham Infant School with Carden Primary School, in Hollingbury, which had reduced its PAN to 30 for one year but increased it back to 60 this year at the infant school’s “expense”
- The council overlooking the school’s link with Patcham Junior School which accepts 97 per cent of its pupils from the infant school
- Frustrating parental preference and threatening the school’s financial viability
- A new influx of families from the centre of Brighton and Hove and from London had also not been taken into account
- Children from Hollingbury would be at a disadvantage
This year Patcham Infant School had 90 places and 80 children were due to start there, with 70 families having opted for the school as their first choice.
In June, the school had 83 pupils in reception, 89 in year one and 90 in year two.
Schools adjudicator Bryan Slater said: “It is clear from these figures when taken together that the demand for places at Patcham Infant School in recent years has been significantly higher than the PAN of 60 which the LA (local authority) has determined for admissions in September 2025.
“Whether this is likely to be the case again in 2025 and subsequent years depends of course on the projected number of parents likely to be seeking places in the area.”
There are currently 150 reception class places available in the council’s Patcham and Hollingbury “planning area” which covers Patcham Infant School and Carden Primary School.
The forecast need for reception places in the area was 105 next year, 123 in 2026 and 92 in 2027.
There would be a shortfall of three places in 2026 if Patcham Infant School dropped a class – but by 2027 there would be 28 spare places.
The council said that it was responding to the increasing number of empty places in primary schools in Brighton and Hove but Dr Slater said that the council had not looked at other options.
He said: “It seems to me that it (the council) has not understood or explored sufficiently the option of setting PANs which are not multiples of 30 and of the possibility of some schools with dwindling numbers to teach in mixed age groups.
“This is a perfectly viable approach from an educational point of view and one which is employed widely across large areas of the country.”
Dr Slater said in his report that the consultation was comprehensive, with 1,237 responses, which did not suggest issues with the online questionnaire.
He said that there were no grounds for accepting the governor’s concern that Patcham Junior School was “not notified” about the consultation.
The issue of the councillor remaining in the meeting for the debate was a matter for the council.
But the adjudicator said that the council had not directly included nurseries in the consultation and parents of pre-school children may not have been aware of the proposal.
Currently, more than half of the “maintained schools” in Brighton and Hove have a financial deficit, with the risk that the council may have to bail them out.
In January, councillors agreed to cut the intake by 30 at five other schools – Brunswick, Goldstone, St Luke’s and Saltdean primary schools and Stanford Infant School.
The deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor was disappointed by the schools adjudicator’s decision to allowing three schools – Goldstone, St Luke’s and Patcham – to keep their three-form entry PANs following appeals.
Councillor Taylor is concerned that the decision will make dealing with the hundreds of surplus spaces much harder and affect the council’s budget as funding is based on pupil numbers.
Without any schools changing their admission numbers, forecasts suggested a surplus of 640 places in reception classes next September, or 24.5 per cent of available places. This would go up to 657 in 2026, more than 25 per cent.
The drop was reflected in the 2021 census, with 21 per cent fewer children aged four and under compared with 2011.
In March, Brighton and Hove City Council voted to close the two smallest primary schools – St Bartholomew’s and St Peter’s – to reduce the number of spare places.
Yet another appeal going against the council. How much public money has the council wasted trying to push through changes in the way they have – presumably initial officer time to draw up the plans, consultations and committee papers, but also now legal costs for any defence of the appeal.
Think all teachers and staff know that the way the council has gone about things is rubbish, and should have been handled differently by them. Councillor Taylor says he’s “disappointed” by the adjudicator’s decision. I’m disappointed that after appeal after appeal after appeal has been lost by his council, he still can’t see (let alone admit) that his administration has screwed this up a bit.
No one is saying the pupil numbers issue does not need addressing, but the way the council has gone about things is pretty dreadful.
Jacob Taylor is concerned only with advancing his own political progression and ambitions , if that comes at the cost to families in the city not getting choices around their childs education then he has shown he couldnt care less .
There were many areas of the “consultation” and appeals process that were flawed therefore wasting a lot of peoples time and the Local Authorities money which they are already short of . I doubt anyone will be held responsible for the waste of money but a vote of no confidence in Mr Taylor must be on the cards surely .