Four primary schools in Hackney are due to close following “plummeting rolls” of pupils joining schools in the borough. 

Hackney Council came to “one of the most difficult and saddest decisions” at the Cabinet meeting on December 11, agreeing to the closure of the four schools in the south of the borough. De Beauvoir and Randal Cremer will close completely, while Colvestone Primary School will be merged with Princess May Primary School and pupils given the option to join Princess May Primary School. Baden Powell Primary School will merge with Nightingale Primary School and pupils given the option to join Nightingale School. 

Jo Riley, Headteacher of Randal Cremer Primary School, told EastLondonlines: “This means some parents avoid schools like ours which have a high level of children from poor socio-economic backgrounds, and instead seek a school further away where they feel their children are better represented.”

Deputy Mayor Antoinette Bramble, Cabinet member for Education in Hackney said the “significant decrease in pupil numbers” is due to a combination of reasons, and that “it isn’t the fault of any individual school”, with currently over 600 free places in empty places in reception classes in Hackney. 

“On average, there’s meant to be a 5% surplus of school places. Hackney has 21% across all of the borough.” 

The Council added that the fall in numbers has had a huge impact on school budgets, with the funding being determined by the pupil numbers in classrooms. Hackney’s 58 state-run Primary Schools have missed out on £31 million of funding between 2022-2023 with the missing pupils. 

Riley said that despite working against the lack of funding and restructuring the school time and again, the school has suffered: “There are only so many restructures you can do before the essence of your school is destroyed” and that undertaking a new restructure would “be savage – cutting teachers, support staff and probably even making myself redundant. We would no longer be the community school we are proud to be, instead we would be providing the bare minimum and Hackney children deserve better.

“We are proud that we have worked incredibly hard not to have a deficit budget, showing a surplus in most years. However, this has been at the expense of redundancies, reducing our workforce, all at a time children have never needed more support. This comes on the back of 2 national lockdowns and chronic underfunding of schools.”  

There is also a huge competition with free schools being set up in the borough. Riley said that a free school was opened “practically on the doorstep” of their school. 

The housing benefit cap is also amongst the reasons for the closures.

Riley said this: “Led to many families leaving the area or being housed in temporary housing outside of Hackney, it is compounded by many school staff not being able to afford to buy or rent in the area their school is located, leading the lengthy commutes.” 

A drop in the birth rate, Brexit, the cost of living crisis and covid are some of the main causes which have contributed to the decline. 

Hackney has experienced a huge demographic shift in the past ten years between 2011-2021, according to Census data. The majority of the borough’s residents in 2021 (24.5%) were aged between 25-34, alongside 32.9% of the boroughs population being one person households as opposed to families.

Hackney’s population has increased by 12,900 in this ten year period, but the percentage of households including a couple without children increased by 2.7%. Currently there are over 600 empty places in reception classes alone in the borough. 

Bramble noted that temporary housing is another aggravating factor, and because of this: “Children flux in and out of the borough.”

She added: “Benefit cap had an impact with the government’s decision to only put a certain amount of money towards rent, and many of Hackney’s properties have quite high rent meaning a lot of rent could not be paid or people couldn’t be housed in hackney anymore” 

However, this is a London wide issue. According to a research report deposited in the House of Commons library in June this year said the key issues behind the decline were : changing immigration patterns, cost of living and housing pressures displacing people to cheaper areas, an increase in the proportion of children in elective home education and children not returning to school following the pandemic.

A national factor of this being birth rates, which has fallen gradually from 2013, and then more sharply from 2016. The repesentative body London Councils revealed that the capital’s birth rate had fallen by 17 per cent between 2012 and 2021. 

Bramble said the closures will have an impact on Hackney’s community: “Schools are not just a place where children are educated, they are the hub, the life and heart of our communities and that’s what makes this decision that is faced before us so difficult.”