Another primary school cuts its intake

Queen’s Park Primary School is to cut its reception class intake to 30 pupils for the next two years because of falling pupil numbers and financial concerns.

Schools adjudicator Miranda Barnett approved a proposal put forward by Brighton and Hove City Council with the backing of governors.

The school, in Park Street, Brighton, is expecting 22 children to start in Reception this term but had 60 places.

The reduced “published admission number” (PAN) will come into force as the 2026-27 school year begins and means that the school will take no more than 30 pupils in total if more youngsters join.

Funding is based on pupil numbers but if the intake stayed unchanged and more than 30 pupils joined Reception, the school would have had to staff two classes. Thirty is the maximum class size.

The adjudicator’s report said that in the past four years the school had not admitted more than 40 pupils in its Reception class apart from in 2024.

The council expects to have 74 vacant places in the eastern part of the city in 2027-28 but fewer vacancies in the following two school years.

The adjudicator’s report said that the school was carrying forward a £52,000 surplus but is projected to go into the red for the next two years – to almost £150,000 in 2027-28.

She said: “The projected in-year deficit for 2026-27 is -£74,782 and the projected deficit for 2027-28 is -£146,768.

“While the school is not currently in deficit … it is clear that, based on current pupil numbers for the school for 2026-27 and projected pupil numbers for 2027-28 … there are unlikely to be full classes at the school.”

Queen’s Park is the fourth school to ask to reduce its admission number this year.

Brunswick Primary School, in Hove, is keeping its reduced Reception intake to 60 this year and next.

Coldean Primary School, in Brighton, is keeping its reduced intake to 30 for the next two years.

St Mark’s Church of England (CofE) Primary School, in Manor Road, Brighton, has reduced its Reception class intake to 15 for the next two years.

Queen’s Park was one of seven schools subject to a public consultation to reduce its intake for September 2023 because of falling pupil numbers across Brighton and Hove.

But such was the strength of feeling when the reductions were proposed – for Bevendean, Carden, Coldean, Queen’s Park, Rudyard Kipling, Saltdean and Woodingdean – that the council abandoned its plans.

Falling pupil numbers have led to three primary schools closing in the past few years – St Bartholomew’s, in Brighton, and St Peter’s, in Portslade, in 2024, and St Joseph’s, in Hollingdean, last year.

The once-thriving Middle Street Primary School, in the centre of Brighton, formally closed at the end of last month.

Parents withdrew their children because of concerns about safeguarding, leadership and governance – and official concern about the school’s finances prompted the appointment of an “interim executive board” (IEB) in place of the governors.

But the loss of confidence among parents continued and the IEB could not come up with a way to ensure that the school would be financially sustainable so recommended its closure earlier this year.