Council revises primary school pupil number proposals
Councillors in Brighton and Hove are to consider not reducing pupil numbers at local primary schools as of September 2023 following the outcome of the consultation process.
The council’s Children, Young People and Skills committee on Monday 31 January will consider a recommendation to this effect from the council’s cross-party School Organisation Working Group.
The move follows extensive public consultation during November and December, and detailed discussions between the council and the schools involved.
The chair of the working group, Councillor Sarah Nield, said: “We’re grateful to all the governors, headteachers, families and residents who engaged with our consultation and gave us their views.
“We have amended our proposals in response to these.
“Locally and nationally we are facing a very serious problem with falling numbers of children set to start school in the next few years.
“We are committed to keeping all our schools open if we possibly can.
“But the council has no budget for keeping schools open where pupil number forecasts suggest schools may encounter serious financial difficulties.
“We’ve been working hard in collaboration with the schools affected by our proposals to understand what falling pupil numbers mean for them, and to look to find solutions wherever possible.
“A key concern is that changes at this point would have a disproportionate impact on schools that serve some of the city’s most disadvantaged pupils.
“Many respondents said they wanted all schools in the city to play their part in reducing the overall number of surplus places – particularly larger schools and schools situated in areas where there are accessible alternative schools.
“We agree – and in recent years we have tried to make this happen, precisely because bigger schools are proportionally less affected by a reduction in numbers than smaller schools.
“But we have been stopped from doing this by the national Schools Adjudicator, who is appointed by the government.
“The Adjudicator’s view is that schools that have high numbers of parental preferences should be allowed to remain the same size.
“We acknowledge that nearly all of our schools are currently managing within existing budgets or have clear recovery plans in place. With this in mind we think it is reasonable to see how parental preferences for this September’s intake affect things.
“But with falling pupil numbers continuing to be a serious issue, we will continue to engage with our family of schools about any concerns they have.”