Plans to cut the admission numbers at two primary schools were described as “ruthless” at a community meeting.
Teachers and governors spoke out about proposals to reduce the reception intakes by one “form of entry” at both Queen’s Park and St Luke’s, in Brighton, from September 2025 at a St Luke’s Residents’ Association meeting.
Brighton and Hove City Council is currently consulting the public on reducing the published admission number (PAN) at nine schools and on a proposal to close two schools.
The council said that the measures were necessary because Brighton and Hove primary schools had hundreds of surplus places.
A St Luke’s teacher and mother Lara Hedgecock, said that teachers’ welfare was not being considered in the proposals which she described as “ruthless”.
She said: “It is really unfair on our mental health. If we go through this process, you’re putting teachers – every year for the next several years – in a corner with redundancy … either choosing voluntary redundancy or facing a forced redundancy process.
“You’re pitting them against their own friends and their community each year. Each year, they’re going to be worrying about their jobs.”
The council’s head of schools organisation Richard Barker said that the government set the timescale for the consultation on the September 2025 intake and it had to be held now.
St Luke’s assistant head teacher Danny Annaly said that a smaller intake would cut off children from the Pankhurst Estate and East Brighton estates.
They would be less likely to be admitted to St Luke’s or Queen’s Park, he told a meeting at St Luke’s Church, in Queen’s Park Road, Brighton, last night (Monday 11 December).
Mr Annaly said: “What we’re going to be doing is hitting very hard two very vulnerable communities who at the moment are included in our schools.”
He said that the mix of pupils was good for the school but, with fewer places, the catchment area would shrink.
He added: “What’s going to happen at St Luke’s is even more the catchment will be based around our school. Where are the Pankhurst Estate going to go?
“Reducing Queen’s Park to 30 … that’s just going to leave the house owners around Queen’s Park. It is unfair.”
Mr Annaly said that people from further away would struggle to pay for buses and that attendance would be a problem.
Queen’s Park Primary School head teacher Emma Gale said that she did not understand why the council was proposing to cut 60 places from the same area.
She said: “This is one of the areas with the smallest shortfalls in pupil numbers. We are next to BN2 5 (the Whitehawk postcode) where we have a lot of children coming from – I’m sure St Luke’s is the same – where they do not have enough space for those children at City Academy Whitehawk and St Mark’s.
“I’m confused why such a high proportion of our pupil population is being removed potentially when we’re not in an area with a high deficit.”
She said that Elm Grove and Fairlight, two other nearby schools with more than one form of entry, were not targeted in the same way.
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Mr Barker said that there had to be a balance between parental preferences and the location of schools – and the council was trying to marry up the factors to make sure that there were enough schools to serve all our local communities.
There was an outcry when Mr Barker said that the council wanted to maintain the viability of existing schools which was why it was proposing to reduce the intake at larger schools.
St Luke’s vice-chair of governors Justine Stephens said that academy schools were not being touched because they had separate admissions processes, as did church schools.
She said: “I’ve been a governor for a long time. The policy of the school has been very clear. We are against academy status.
“We desperately want to stay as part of the community of schools in Brighton and Hove and everything that offers.
“For the first time ever, parents have come up to me at the school gate saying other schools are talking about academisation. We want to stay at 90. Why is this not on the table.”
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Mr Barker said that the council – and councillors – did not want to promote academies.
He said that the intent was not to pitch schools against schools but, instead, to resolve the problem of too many spare places.
The proposals were in response to the falling number of children due to start primary school – with fewer than 2,000 children expected to start school in September 2025.
When birth rates were higher, about 10 years ago, the number was nearer 3,000 and schools locally had to expand to squeeze them all in.
The council’s approach has been to try to reduce admission numbers at bigger schools to protect smaller schools from having to close although the council has proposed closing two schools next summer.
Mr Barker said that more than 800 responses to the consultation had been received so far on the council’s website. The deadline to comment is on Thursday 22 December.
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The council is also consulting on the proposed closure of St Bartholomew’s CofE Primary School, in Brighton, and St Peter’s Community School, in Portslade, from September 2023.
Yesterday, children, parents and carers and staff took part in a protest march from St Bartholomew’s, in Ann Street, Brighton, to the Jubilee Library, in Jubilee Street, Brighton.
And on Thursday (14 December), councillors are due to debate two petitions objecting to the closures at a meeting of the full council.
A report on the results of the consultation and the proposed next steps is due to be presented to the council’s Children, Families and Schools Committee on Monday 22 January.
It had been due to be presented from Monday 8 January but it has been put back until after a by-election on Thursday 11 January.
The by-election is in South Portslade where Labour councillor Les Hamilton, 82, stood down last month after serving as a councillor for more than 50 years.
The ward includes St Peter’s, one of the two schools that the council plans to close.
The reality is the cuts probably aren’t drastic enough. Dependent visas have been removed and in this area there will be a lot of kids on dependent visas with parents working at the hospital or studying at a local university. Also, more and more families will continue to move to cheaper areas such as Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath where the schools are packed. Seems a shame that there was no consideration about trying to protect school places in the better schools. Why for instance were 30 places cut from St Lukes which is highly rated by Ofsted and the same number cut from Queens Park which is amongst the worst Ofsted rated schools in the city. If anything they should have been looking to expand the St Lukes Places as the schools are close to each other geographically and kids don’t have years to wait until a school improves. Their life chances are very often wrecked if their education suffers.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I think this situation is just a symptom of a much larger issue; housing stock in Brighton, holiday rentals, and social housing specifically.
Centralisation is an interesting concept, one that’s been explored in other industries, typically as a cost efficiency project. Take that to an extreme, what would one school that facilities the whole of Brighton look like? Would it be viable? Would it be cost effective? How would it affect students day-to-day?
Certainly food for thought, even as just a mental exercise.
Labour promised in their manifesto not to close any schools. Months later they propose doing so. You can’t trust New New Labour
Just to put another view out there, my children are very happy at Queen’s Park. I feel their education is rich and well-taught and there are improvements every day (Ofsted is one indicator, but for me, I see my children happy and coming home teaching me).
QP and St Luke’s offer different experiences; many people choose QP because what they provide is different. It’s good to see the schools unifying in their positions.
My kids also go to Queens Park and are very happy there. They are getting a very good education and are part of one of the most diverse schools in the area which brings life lessons, much more than just academic. Ofsted recognise that with our new head teacher we are on the right path to be excellent. If our school and funds are cut in half this progress will be severely hindered, disproportionately effecting the already vulnerable kids. Don’t make it harder for us, support us!
Your kids may be happy there and that is good. Although there is no reason to think they wouldn’t hopefully be happy at a different school as most of their friends would follow them. Many would probably be happier as the school would be far better resourced which would allow the kids to have better access to specialist intervention staff for dyslexia, school grounds and facilities and learning support etc. Also passing exams isn’t everything in life and being happy counts for a lot. Lots of people who can’t read and write well do far more valuable jobs than those that do. If it wasn’t for cleaners at the Royal Sussex for instance people would die without sterile wards and if it wasn’t for people that made food in factories or harvested vegetables or cared for the elderly many of us would starve or even die.
It’s unfortunate to have to shrink schools but as birth rates are falling it’s going to be necessary. There are many benefits to children attending school walking distance from home and so it would seem to follow that keeping all schools open but making some smaller would provide the best outcome for most. St Luke’s being reduced from 90 to 60 is surely better than a smaller school going from 30 to 0, ie closing.
Incidentally, St Luke’s like to trumpet their outstanding Ofsted rating but they haven’t been fully inspected since 2013. A whole cohort has passed through since then so the grading isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
The issue is most of these schools are no more than a 5 minute walk from each other and so this isn’t quite true. Although closing a school is politically often unpopular any school leadership team will tell you that schools with far more form entries do much better. The issue is that all political parties know this but just dragged their feet on doing what was right for the kids. This is because the schools that have far more money and can use it to provide more experienced teachers or senior leadership teams or more staff with more specialist skills and have to spend less of its money as a percentage of budget on administrators, marketing, recruitment, school maintenance etc. Larger schools also have more budget to allow them to target recruitment so for instance the example here was given of one of these schools being very diverse. At a larger school kids who arrive who do not have English as a first language are far more likely to be able to get more and specialist help at learning English tat a larger school to help them catch up. The schools can say we have budget for many more teachers and lets get one dedicated to these kids to in effect ‘hot house’ them as we have a large number of kids where English is not the first language. The same can be said with kids who have suffered trauma or have learning difficulties or just who are behind. In a small school there simply is less money so it is more likely all these kids will be in the same class which means kids that should be getting more intensive help may not get it as it probably won’t be available and brighter kids also do not reach their potential as yet again the teacher has less time to focus on them when a kid with behavioural issues is having a meltdown in the corner or the kid in the corner can’t speak English very well and would benefit from getting focused English language tuition so they can understand what is being said in maths easily.
As long as planners allow nay encourage houses to be turned into flats there are no small houses for young couples who then have families. Areas such as Hanover were, in the ’70’s and 80’s full of young couples and childen. Hence the founding of the Hanover Community Centre and vibrant schools at St Lukes Queen’s Park Royal Spa and Tannerland. The properties were just right for young families-near schools/ open spaces ar the Level and Queen’s Park/ near the city centre/near the sea. BUT NOW almost exclusively these houses broken into student rooms. RESULTyoung families have to find homes outside Brighton .
Totally respect the comments from other school parents but why the hell are the labour council shutting our schools St Bart’s and St Peter’s won’t be the only one’s .
St Bart’s has got good Ofsted and there is a lot of children waiting to come in to reception classes ,but on hold because of what the council is trying to do , idiots!!! So if St Bart’s close where do a 142 children, some with special needs and some with displacement issues and other physical problems, they need specialist teachers to help them .
The Labour Council are 32 million pounds in debt and are looking to cut back on money going out, even though the 360 owes 40 million pounds which I put to them ,but they didn’t reply no suprise there !! , labour blaming the greens , we all need to protest about cuts made by the council, as the labour council promised before being elected education comes first , I’m not voting labour again