‘Leave us kids alone!’: Hackney forges ahead with school closures as families and staff protest

Families and teachers gather on the Town Hall steps. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

Hackney Council has defied backlash from parents, teachers and other stakeholders as it pushes forward with controversial plans to shut or merge four primary schools in the borough.

In a final bid to halt proposals put forward in the autumn, parents, teachers and pupils flocked to the Town Hall on a blustery evening on Monday, chanting ‘Hey, Hackney, leave us kids alone!’

They gathered on the steps ahead of cabinet members making their decision in the council chamber that evening.

Carly Slingsby, a teacher at St Dominic’s Primary – one of the schools earmarked for closure – said regardless of the council’s decision, she and many others were there to show the community’s opposition to the plans and signal that they were not just bricks in the wall.

“We all know that the government funding formula just doesn’t work. We should not be putting a price on our schools based on how many kids are in them. It should be about the institution and what it provides,” she said.

“How can the council keep going through this pattern that doesn’t work by closing schools? Four last year, four this year. How many more? Where does [it] stop?”

Callum, from the London Renters Union, said the council was not pulling out the roots of the problem of dwindling pupil numbers, which he instead argued was caused by the housing crisis.

“The schools are emptying because working-class families can’t stay here anymore, and then the funding gets cut,” he said.

“We need to find a way of dealing with that problem because it’s happening all over London.”

Under current council plans, Sir Thomas Abney, St Dominic’s, St Mary’s and Oldhill primary schools could each face full closure or merge with other schools, due to falling rolls and a yawning gap in the council’s budget.

The pupil census taken this year revealed there were 2,400 fewer children in the borough’s primary schools compared to January 2017, with 600 unfilled reception places – an increase of roughly 20 per cent in the last decade.

But despite appeals over fears for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), staff redundancies and shattered school communities, the council said alternatives to shutting or merging these establishments were not “financially sustainable”.

It has now decided to move to the final statutory phase, triggering a 28-day representation period during which stakeholders can raise their objections or comments on the plans.

The final decision is scheduled for April, and is likely to see closures and mergers enacted by the end of August.

Sir Thomas Abney Primary is due to be merged with Holmleigh, with the latter relocated to the former’s site.

Oldhill Community School is also set to be consolidated with Harrington Hill, with Oldhill pupils transferred to the latter’s site, which will also have a greater capacity and be tasked with delivering Oldhill’s specialised SEND offer.

St Dominic’s and St Mary’s will permanently close.

The Citizen was told that ideas floated by campaigners, who recently met with the borough’s director of education Jason Marantz, had been declined.

Antonia Harland-Lang addresses councillors. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

In the council chamber, local resident Tim Cowbury warned that Sir Thomas Abney parents did not want to merge with Holmleigh and should be supported in moving their children to different schools.

Antonia Harland-Lang, whose child attends Holmleigh School, raised her concerns that the plans themselves were being rushed through despite there still being “a lot of confusion”.

Hackney’s education chief, Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, cautioned that while the council was prepared to support children finding places in other schools than the proposed merger, “it would be remiss of us not to provide an opportunity where the school community can stay together”.

“Yes, the name may change. Yes, the uniform may change. Maybe some adults might change. But that opportunity to stay in the school that they know already would be overlooked,” she said.

Cllr Bramble also explained that the council agreed to the current timescale after receiving feedback that the previous batch of closures took “far too long”.

Acknowledging the “strength of feeling”, the education boss insisted that the council remained focused on solutions against a backdrop of unsustainable school deficits.

“We haven’t been able to stop fewer children needing school places, and that is the challenge of why we are here today.

“No-one gets elected to close schools. Officers don’t join fantastic councils like Hackney because they want to be in this position,” she said.

“The very things that local people, children, teachers, parents, carers and school leaders love become undermined if we allow schools to remain open that isn’t able to run the school in the way we want it.

“It isn’t because those school leaders have failed in any way – it’s because there aren’t enough children to take up places.”

On the Town Hall steps, Independent Socialist councillor Penny Wrout had criticised the “stupid” decision to close the schools, “the lifeblood of our borough”, and echoed others’ remarks that housing was fundamental to the problem of falling rolls.

During the meeting she also laid blame with the “broken” national funding formula (NFF) for schools, and questioned the cabinet as to whether they were lobbying the Labour government to change it.

Cllr Bramble insisted that the problem ultimately came down to the number of empty school places rather than the NFF.

“This isn’t just an issue that we’re facing here in Hackney – it’s a London issue because of the number of families moving outside of [the city] for all sorts of reasons.”

Ms Slingsby, who is also an organiser for the National Education Union, said the “shortsighted” move to press on with the closures was “devastating”.

“The council reported that they need to protect two-form entry school sites as they don’t know what future demand will be. St Dominic’s is a two-form entry site – where is our protection?” she said.

“Hackney will struggle even further with the teacher retention and recruitment crisis as professionals will lose faith in the idea of job security in the borough.

“The children, staff and parents are obviously devastated by the news but the campaign will continue.

“We are a community who support each other and we will continue to do so.”