A sinkhole has appeared outside a financially troubled Brighton primary school where more changes are happening after a council fixer was sent in.
Ashley Seymour-Williams has been named as a member of the “interim executive board” which has been appointed in place of the board of governors at Middle Street Primary School.
The school is believed to be the first in Brighton and Hove to have an interim executive board, a step that was signed off by the Department for Education (DfE) last month.
DfE guidance said that an interim executive board could only be set up at a “school causing concern”.
Mr Seymour-Williams, the senior education adviser at Brighton and Hove City Council and former head at Patcham Junior School, was initially sent in to chair the board of governors.
A letter from the DfE to the council said: “Thank you for your recent application to the Secretary of State seeking consent to the appointment of an interim executive board (IEB) at Middle Street Primary School.
“This application has been approved and the proposed members as noted below may formally take up their responsibilities, with immediate effect.”
Mr Seymour-Williams will remain at the school as part of the new seven-strong board, with Anne Allison becoming chair. The new board is made up mostly of serving or former head teachers.
Their number includes Rachel Burstow, Shelley Baker and Rachel Kershaw as well as the council’s head of finance Louise Hoten and council human resource manager Kate Vallance.
The letter from the DfE regional director for the south east, Dame Kate Dethridge, said: “We would recommend that the IEB is in place for no longer than a year and suggest reviewing the arrangements in the spring term 2025 with a view to moving to a long-term governance option once the school’s long-term viability is assured.”
Middle Street head teacher Rob Cooper remains in post as the school wrestles with a six-figure deficit.
The school had a budget of £857,000 for the past financial year but spent almost £1 million. It ended the financial year with a deficit of £256,000, having gone over budget by £138,000, adding to its existing deficit of £118,000.
The school has ended the past four financial years in the red. Funding is based on the number of pupils and Middle Street had 190 pupils in June 2024, according to its most recent Ofsted report.
With leavers and joiners since that time, the number is understood to have risen slightly to 193, with five out of the seven classes full.
But costs are broadly based on 30 children to a class – and the published admission number (PAN) or annual intake for Middle Street is 30 pupils, giving it a capacity of 210 places.
Last September, 24 were due to start in reception, according to council figures on school allocations, a shortfall of six – or 20 per cent.
When the council announced the national offer day allocations this year, the figure for this coming September was 23.
Middle Street is one of several schools in Brighton and Hove and beyond with a deficit and spare places.
According to the most recent DfE financial dashboard for schools figures, Middle Street spent £5,398 per pupil on teaching and teaching support staff in 2023-24 – more than 86.7 per cent of similar schools.
As well as the financial challenges, the school has higher than average absence rates, with a persistent absence rate of 30.8 per cent, according to DfE figures.
This was more than twice the 15 per cent average in Brighton and Hove and almost double the 16.8 per cent average for state-funded schools in England.
The overall absence rate was 7.9 per cent, according to the DfE, compared with 5.7 per cent across Brighton and Hove and 5.9 per cent across England.
An update from the school said: “The attendance figure is now 90.4 per cent, with unauthorised absence at 1.6 per cent and persistent absence at 22.9 per cent (48 pupils).”
Ten days ago, the school emailed parents to say that children would be taught in mixed age groups from September, with six classes instead of seven.
The email was sent after the school had closed for the weekend, prompting a number of parents who could not reach the school to contact Brighton and Hove News.
Some said that they tried the school’s app to see the new arrangements for their child only to find the relevant details were not on there.
A senior leadership team (SLT) drop in last week was dominated by the issue, with Mr Cooper saying that the changes were driven by the school’s finances.
One parent told the meeting that she was a professional fundraiser who had just raised more than £2 million. She had offered her help to the school but had been turned away, she told the meeting.
There were also concerns that the changes meant that the autumn term start date would be pushed back to Monday 8 September, allowing extra time for staff to prepare.
Another parent has told Brighton and Hove News that safeguarding concerns were raised with the school and the council as long as ago as October.
Eight children in year 4 were withdrawn from the school by their parents but there were fears that the issues raised had not been adequately handled.
The remaining children are due to start their summer holidays at the end of this week. It may be that the sinkhole outside the school is the least of the problems facing the new interim executive board.
Tenuous link of the week!
Sinkhole gets a single mention in the first sentence but not a mention after that.
Not even a humerous comment that the council is looking into it!
If you wanted to post an article about the school and its finances then just write one.
Agree this is a very bizarre article. The sink hole is actually outside the barbers shop and not the school itself, making it even odder for B&H News to be connecting the sink hole issue to the school finances. Anyone who knows Middle Street will be able to clock the photo of the sinkhole is from the stretch of road by the alley leading to Twisted Lemon, just by the Nationwide garage doors – not outside the school.
Poor marks for attention span Chris. The sinkhole is also mentioned at the end, and there are photographs of it. You’re right though, it’s a shame they missed the obvious joke about a hole appearing and the council looking into it. Guessing it’s a timely metaphor of sorts.
Nothing wrong with my attention span.
A couple of photos and a closing sentence that only mentions the sinkhole in passing does not make it a better article about the sinkhole when the vast majority is still about the problems with the school.
Is this about a hole in the finances? Why are there 2 stories in one. Is the hole linked…actually
nevermind.
There are some very literal and humourless people on here. Even if you want to be really concrete, the hole is just a matter of 10 or 20 metres from the school at most. And if there isn’t a hole in the school’s finances, something’s amiss.
I hope that the finances are sorted out. All my kids went there and got a great education. There has been a school on this site since the reign of Charles II. Be a pity if it closed.
All schools are in financial trouble these days
Yeah, it stems a lot from the massive reduction in childbirth rates over the past decade or so.
As a parent at Middle Street who was at the referenced SLT meeting, this article feels pretty slanted in its reporting.
For example, the school didn’t turn away the parent offering to fundraise, they apologised for not being in touch and said that they would be. The school were investigated for safeguarding concerns but no comment from the council regarding the outcome of the investigation, just some unidentified parents apparently not happy with the outcome of the investigation etc.
I’m personally pretty happy that they moved around the inset days in order to better prepare for the move to vertical learning – it’s a bit annoying from a personal administrative perspective but it’s 3 days in the grand scheme of things.
It also would have been nice if you’d leaned into some of the long history of Middle Street, for example the fact that it’s had vertical learning classes before.
Totally accept that the financial position is very poor, but it’s clear that it’s been a very tricky (and therefore expensive) year and that the school must still be doing something right if it’s got an intake of 193 for a capacity of 210 and 5 full classes out of 7 in this current climate of falling birth rates.
Thank you for setting out the points. I am sure the school will appreciate it. All schools are under incredible pressure financially and changes to pay funding, increases in cover staff etc can all have a huge impact. On the issue of fundraising – Im not sure what sort of fundraising was mentioned. Schools are for example rarely able to access grants or funds and are prohibited or restricted from doing so, and those that may be open to them are invariably for very specific projects. There us also the challenge that funds are able to support all children. Ive done a great deal of fundraising for tens of millions in the non profit and I cant tell you how hard it is when the beneficiary is a state school.
It’s a bit odd that this is not written up as two separate stories.
There’s no ironic humour to be had in describing a school undergoing special measures, and then mentioning that a ‘sinkhole’ appeared in the road outside – as if there’s a link.
This school IS a bit unusual in its location, being sandwiched between West Street and the Lanes in the oldest part of Brighton, and it would be interesting to know what the school catchment area is, or how places are allocated nowadays.
Back in the 1980s, when Brighton was still a shabby seaside town, this little school was a lovely place to find in the town centre, just because of the unexpected happy sounds of children playing, as you walked past. With all the demographic changes we’ve seen in the decades since, it would be interesting to know whether the number of young families living in the city centre has gone up – or gone down.
Let’s hope they can turn around this school, as a city centre haven for childcare. With our declining birth rate, and falling school numbers, it’s too easy for our cash-strapped council to see this site as another opportunity to sell off the land – inevitably to a developer who will want to build more (unaffordable) high rise flats.
School Catchments are a lively topic these days, Billy! Last demographic data I saw shows quite a lot of younger families living in the centre of Brighton, and you can see really substantial demographic differences by ward. A couple are what you expect, of course.
What I find odd is the puerile fixation in the comments on the sinkhole. It’s only just opened up, but it does seem like an apt metaphor. Much more important are the unanswered questions. Why is the school a cause for concern? Why is it in the red by so much again? What are the safeguarding concerns? Why haven’t they been adequately dealt with? Why are dozens of children missing so many school days? Especially compared to other schools? The sinkhole is new, and this story tells me about as much about it as I want to know for now, but I’m much more worried about the unanswered questions, and I hope this new board is genuinely going to sort things out here.
Another school the council wants to close to sell off the site, no doubt. How convenient.
Except the sink hole is actually by the barbers and not the school, so perhaps we will have a sinking Singing Barber!
This may sound direct, but it’s crucial we speak honestly about Middle Street School’s challenges. While some parents believe the school is thriving, many families are experiencing serious concerns that cannot be ignored. Some voices in our community may not fully grasp how these issues disproportionately impact families who need the most support.
Let’s examine the evidence:
Leadership Timeline:
Since 2020, when current leadership was appointed, numerous operational, financial, and organizational challenges have emerged that require urgent attention.
Staff Exodus:
The school has lost many experienced, dedicated teachers—some with 15+ years of service. Multiple departures have been attributed to management concerns and lack of professional support.
Communication Breakdown:
Parents consistently report poor communication: last-minute notifications, unfulfilled commitments, and concerns that go unaddressed for months.
Administrative Failures:
Serious questions have been raised about record-keeping systems, particularly those related to child welfare monitoring.
Parent Relations:
Several families report being excluded from school premises without clear explanations or proper procedures being followed.
Supervision Concerns:
There have been incidents during school trips that have raised significant safety questions, with some staff involved subsequently receiving promotions.
Leadership Appointments:
Recent hiring decisions have sparked community debate about whether all leaders share values appropriate for working with children.
Support Gaps:
The school’s approach to managing challenging behavior and supporting neurodiverse learners has left many families feeling abandoned.
Enrollment Crisis:
Approximately 20 families removed their children last year—not due to moving house, but because of concerns about school management and environment.
Official Interventions:
Formal complaints have been submitted to governors and the local authority. Most significantly, the entire governing body was replaced by an Interim Executive Board (IEB)—an extraordinary intervention that signals serious systemic problems.
Representation Issues:
The teaching staff lacks diversity, raising questions about how well the school reflects and serves its community.
Existential Threat:
Here’s the stark reality: continued enrollment decline threatens the school’s viability. While closure isn’t currently proposed, financial pressures could rapidly change this. We risk losing our community school while those responsible for its decline face no consequences.
The Bottom Line:
The IEB appointment proves these aren’t just “parent complaints”—they’re recognized systemic failures requiring emergency intervention. Our children deserve stability, safety, and support. Our community deserves transparency and accountability.
We cannot accept decline as inevitable. Middle Street can and must do better. It’s time to demand the leadership our children deserve and fight for this school’s future.