Eight half-empty primary schools across north London will learn their fates next week as the capital’s birth rate continues to tumble.
Hackney Council is expected to finalise plans to close or merge six more primary schools next Tuesday, despite four already shutting their doors permanently last summer.
Hackney is likely to close St Mary’s Church of England Primary School and St Dominic’s Catholic Primary School, as well as shutting Oldhill Community School and merging it with Harrington Hill Primary School.
It is also set to shut Sir Thomas Abney Primary School and merge it with nearby Holmleigh Primary School, leaving parents and teachers feeling like the council is “pulling the plug” on them.
Two days later, Islington Council is expected to close Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s Church of England primary schools.
The decisions come amid growing fears of “ghost areas” spreading across London as communities are destroyed by the number of families leaving the capital due to the cost-of-living crisis and housing prices.
The majority of London boroughs have seen a significant fall in pupil numbers, leaving classrooms half empty and without crucial funding.
Hackney lost 2,399 primary school-aged children between 2017 and 2024 and council projections show that a further 2,637 children are expected to disappear from the area by 2035.
Almost one in four reception places in Hackney were left unfilled in October 2024, and since schools receive funding based on their pupil numbers, the decrease has left many schools cash-strapped.
Meanwhile, Islington has labelled the decision to shut Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s Primary schools as a “last resort” having exhausted all other options.
But parents at the schools have disputed this and insisted that Islington has not properly considered merging the two schools at the St Jude and St Paul’s site.
Andri Andreou, a parent at St Jude and St Paul’s school, told the Standard that campaigners have asked Islington four times to consider merging the schools but have been left feeling like “the underdogs will never win”.
St Jude and St Paul’s school has a vacancy rate of 46% as well as the lowest pupil numbers of any primary school in the borough.
Meanwhile, Highbury Quadrant is more than half empty and is operating with a long-standing budget deficit, according to Islington Council.
Parents, teachers and pupils from across Hackney and Islington have been trying to campaign against the “heartbreaking” closures, who have argued shutting the schools is “setting children up for failure”.
The decision to shut the schools has been described as short-sighted, financially driven and incredibly disruptive to children, particularly those with special educational needs.
Hackney teachers have previously warned the Standard that London could become a childless city and hundreds of staff could lose their jobs.
Read more: Parents and teachers in last-ditch attempt to save Hackney schools from closure
Further concerns have also been raised about school closures following in other areas of London.
Earlier this month, Kensington and Chelsea Council put forward plans to close St Cuthbert with St Matthias Church of England Primary School on December 31.
A letter sent to parents by the school’s chair of governors said that “hard choices have to be made” and explained that less than 40% of spaces are full at the school.
The closure date for Kings Avenue School in Clapham has also been moved forward a year to September 2025. The school’s pupils will be given the option to move to nearby Glenbrook Primary School.
Earlier this year, a London Councils report looking at the capital’s decline in pupil numbers found there may be a drop of 8.2% in reception-aged children in south east London.
The 2023-24 school year also marked the first time that London had more children in Year 7 than starting in reception across the city, according to the report.
The number of students starting in Year 7 is also expected to drop in the next four years, particularly in areas of central London, and could begin to create issues in the capital’s secondary schools.
The Covid-19 pandemic, rising living costs, Brexit and the shortage of affordable housing have all been listed as reasons for the drop in children in the capital.
The Standard revealed last year that the number of babies born in the capital fell by a fifth in a decade, dropping faster than any other area in England.
A report from the Trust for London published earlier this month has also highlighted that the number of children in gentrified areas has dropped faster than in other areas of London.
It explained: “One of the biggest threats of gentrification is that it makes London so expensive families can no longer afford to raise children here.”
