Townsend School to close its doors

5 June 2023

A final decision is to be agreed by the council’s cabinet on the closure of Townsend Primary School. Subject to Cabinet agreement on June 13th, and with much sadness, the school will have to close its doors at the end of this school year, July 2023. All children have been offered a place in another good or outstanding school.

Today, Southwark’s schools are rated 97 per cent good or outstanding by Ofsted. This was not always the case; over a decade ago our schools were fourth from the bottom of London authorities against this measure. This transformation of school improvement, is largely due to the hard work of our teachers and governors, pupils and parents, and our own school improvement work, as well as work to make vastly improved buildings for learning.

These efforts have resulted in outcomes for our children and young people being consistently above the national average, putting them in the best 10 per cent of state funded schools in the country. These improvements have been hard won and we must continue to do all we can to protect the high standards our children deserve.

However, ten years ago, the demand for school places meant that we had to create more school places. Today we are dealing with just the opposite, where the numbers of children needing a school place has fallen significantly so there is much less demand for school places.

This lack of demand is largely due to a national falling birth rate, affordability of housing in central London and Brexit. This means that our schools, which are funded per pupil by the government, are struggling to balance their budgets. The council has dedicated a great deal of time and resource to help school leaders find a solution.

This resulted in a clear strategy, approved by cabinet in 2022: Keeping Education Strong. This strategy lays out how we are to successfully maintain a high quality education for all our children across all our primary schools. This includes looking at options for schools such as amalgamation, federating, reducing their pupil admission number, and sadly in a handful of cases – closure, as a very last resort.

Despite every effort by the hardworking school leadership, Townsend Primary School has been unable to remain open, after full consultation with parents and the wider community. On 13June, the council’s Cabinet will be presented with the outcomes of the full consultation and asked to agree a recommendation for closure.

Councillor Jasmine Ali, Deputy Leader and cabinet member for children, education and refugees, said: “I am incredibly sad about this heart-breaking decision to close Townsend Primary School. We hoped that we would find another school for Townsend to amalgamate with, but this did not happen. I know how hard the school, parents and governors have worked to do everything in their power to keep the school going, and this decision is a very last resort. I thank them all for everything they have done.

“Unfortunately, no school can function, or continue to provide the same excellent education, with no money. Everyone’s main focus, mine included, is the children and the quality of their education. They will be offered places in another, good or outstanding school locally, where they will thrive. While closure is hard, as is change, I am confident that the children will quickly adapt and enjoy a fantastic education in their new schools, I wish them all the very best for their futures. We will make sure that the school building is maintained for education purposes so that when we have more young families in the area the school building can be used again for its intended purpose.”

It is the principle of the Council to protect a high quality of education; keep every one of our schools open where possible; maintain parental choice; minimise movement between schools. The education team is committed to working with individual schools to assess the feasibility of keeping a school open where there are falling numbers of pupils. This will involve intensive, ongoing, practical support for the schools, including the assessment and advice of school financial plans and risk assessments.

However, the link between pupil numbers and school funding means that it is not always feasible to keep all schools going in the future – only the government can change the way schools are funded and we cannot control a falling birth rate. As the number of children in a class falls, so does the income to the school, meaning the cost of teaching staff, equipment and enrichment activities become unaffordable. We will make every effort to Keep Education Strong in Southwark, despite every challenge presented to us.

Page last updated: 05 June 2023