Coldean Primary School is to cut its intake to 30 children for the year from September after money problems and forecast drop in pupil numbers.
Schools adjudicator Miranda Barnett approved a proposal by Brighton and Hove City Council which was made with the backing of Coldean governors.
The school has a published admissions number (PAN) of 60 but offered places to just 36 children to start in Reception from September.
With a maximum class size of 30 children in the youngest age groups, the school would have had to have provided two classes and two teachers as thought there were 60 children joining.
But school funding is based on pupil numbers so the school would only have had funding for the 36 children due to start at the school.
Last year, the school reduced its official intake to 30 Reception pupils for the current 2025-26 year, with just 25 children offered places and 22 starting. The number of pupils in Reception has since risen slightly to 24.
The council told the schools adjudicator: “The risk to the school of admitting more than 30 pupils in 2027 will exacerbate the financial pressure the school is under.
“The school had a deficit budget position agreed with the local authority for 2024-25 financial year. It remains in a deficit budget position in 2025-26 and this request is to ensure that the school do not re-enter a deficit position.”
Coldean Primary has told the adjudicator that it finished the financial year with a £16,000 surplus and forecast another financial surplus of £17,700 next year but future pupil numbers remain a concern.
The school said: “The reduction in PAN for 2027-28 will give us financial stability and also provide governors time to look at birth rates in greater detail with the local authority to make any future plans around PAN moving forward.
“Our knowledge of the children attending our nursery indicates much lower numbers than usual. We strongly believe this will translate to fewer children in Reception.
“If we creep just over 30 again this has a huge financial impact on staffing for three years until the children reach KS2 (Key Stage 2) and we can go above 30 in a class.”
The council has pushed ahead with proposals to cut intakes only with support from governors, having lost a number of appeals to the schools adjudicator in previous years.
Coldean was one of seven schools subject to a public consultation to reduce its PAN for September 2023 because of falling pupil numbers across Brighton and Hove.
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.
The adjudicator said: “It is not being suggested that accommodation is being removed and so the physical capacity of the school remains the same.
“Reducing the PAN will not change that. What this means is that should there be a need for the school to increase its PAN and / or admit more children in 2027-28 than it currently expects to, there remains the capacity in the building for it to do so.”
Well done universities and your HMO’S. You’ve killed Brighton suburbs.
Gird your loins for the next closure and bargain sale of land for development. Oh just to appease planners, I’ll put a brand new medical centre at the top of the steepest hill, (so that those that need it most can’t access it easily!) Also I will provide a shed for a “community hub” but only if I can forego any social housing element which will render the scheme unviable. If not, I can just land bank the whole area until I can really maximise my profits. Expansion of student housing from across Coldean Lane? Now if I build it under that guise, I can say “drop in student numbers…not viable….. but young professionals.. foot on the property ladder..etc.”
Sack the Uni’s off. Convert to social housing and start encouraging families back to Brighton. As already stated this town has been ruined bu the Uni’s. All allowed by the Local Authority who should have said no to the Uni expansion.
If we’re looking to encourage more families to Brighton, that has to be based around social housing; and nationally, that needs to be making the cost of living much cheaper for people. Particularly when you are looking at falling birth rates across the board, and Brighton having one of the lowest in the country, economic pressures are making people choose to not have children.