A South London primary school will close after just three kids applied to attend it this academic year. Townsend Primary School in Walworth will shut its doors to pupils at the end of the summer term in August.
Southwark Council said the drop in pupils attending the school on Townsend Street meant it no longer made financial sense to keep it open.
Schools in England are funded per pupil so the fewer students that attend the less money the school receives from the government. Townsend Primary is currently spending £596,000 more a year than it earns with that figure expected to grow in future years, according to the council.
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All remaining 80 pupils have been helped to find places at Ofsted-rated 'good' or 'outstanding' schools nearby. Townsend Primary is the third school in inner South London to announce it plans to close at the end of the 2022/23 term in recent months in decisions linked to falling numbers, while a fourth had already said it will shut this year.
In May, St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls in Tulse Hill announced it would shut at the end of the summer term. A month before in April, 340-year-old Archbishop Tenison's School in Oval revealed it would shut in August due to a lack of pupils.
St Francesca Cabrini Primary School announced last year that it wouldn't reopen for the 2023/24 term after nuns who run the school in Honor Oak decided to leave the UK to focus on missionary work in East Africa. The school has also suffered from a drop in numbers attending it.
Townsend Primary School has seen its fortunes turn around in the last 15 years, going from being rated 'inadequate' by Ofsted in two consecutive inspections in 2008 and 2009 to being graded 'good' at its last inspection in 2019.
Despite this the school had struggled to get kids to apply for it in recent years. In 2016/17, the school received 68 applications to join its 30 person reception class. Last year, the number of applications plummeted to just three who wanted to attend this academic year (2022/23). Of those three, only two had it as their first choice school.
The announcement of the school's closure comes as a blow to parents who successfully campaigned to stop the school closing in 2022.
Councillor Jasmine Ali, Southwark's cabinet member for education, said officials had considered trying to merge the school with others nearby in an attempt to save it but such an idea wasn't in the "mainstream of the psyche of the [other] schools" last year when it was looked at.
Southwark Council's cabinet approved plans to close Townsend from August at a meeting on June 13. Announcing the decision, Cllr Ali branded the decision "terribly difficult".
She said: "We know that schools are the heart of our communities so it is with absolutely great sadness that I come with the proposal to close Townsend Primary. This follows a consultation on the school closure on the basis of falling pupil rolls that has put intense, irreversible pressure on the finances and the school budget."
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