TWO Church of England primary schools in south London and the Isle of Wight will now stay open, after the proposals for his or her closure were rejected by an adjudicator.
St John the Divine C of E Primary School, within the London Borough of Lambeth, and Arreton St George’s C of E Primary School, on the Isle of Wight, had each been slated for closure. Decisions this week by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator mean that each will now stay open.
The diocese of Portsmouth had referred the case of Arreton St George’s to the adjudicator, arguing that the method used to make the choice had been flawed. The judgment, published this week, agreed with this assessment, however the response from the college and the diocese highlighted the harm done by months of uncertainty.
The head teacher, Nicky Coates, said: “I feel sad and frustrated that a lot time and energy has been wasted on a process that was flawed from the beginning.”
The diocesan director of education, Jeff Williams, said: “We are also not celebrating this news. It does, nevertheless, justify the stance that we took right back at first of this process, which was to argue that the strategy used to pick all six schools originally earmarked for closure was not fair or transparent.”
Two other C of E schools on the island had been amongst those set to shut (News, 13 September 2024), before the Council voted to desert a lot of the proposed closures (News, 28 March).
The adjudicator’s decision had “vindicated the efforts of our diocese’s education team, the headteachers and governors of all the colleges, in addition to the pupils, parents and all those that campaigned against these closures”, Mr Williams said.
In south London, strong feelings were expressed in regards to the plans to shut St John the Divine and merge it with Christ Church Primary SW9, also in Kennington (News, 20 September 2024).
In a judgment published on Tuesday, the adjudicator, Clive Sentance, wrote: “The governing body of [the school] and Lambeth have expressed their views about one another’s handling and understanding of this case in robust language.”
Documents from the Council said that 98 per cent of respondents “didn’t support the proposed amalgamation”, he wrote.
The head teacher, Catherine Warland, and the Vicar of St John the Divine, the Revd Mark Williams, had previously criticised Southwark’s Diocesan Board of Education (DBE) for what they saw as a scarcity of support for the college.
The DBE’s written response to the proposal to shut the college said that, if the colleges were amalgamated, “it will be crucial to secure a process to discover and safeguard the core values, traditions, and academic approaches which have contributed to every school’s uniqueness.”
This, Mr Sentance wrote, suggested that the diocese had “misunderstood the implications of the proposal”, which was to shut St John the Divine and facilitate growth at Christ Church — to not create what would, in effect, be a recent school.
This misunderstanding was due to “errors in communication from Lambeth”, Mr Sentance said. Other errors in the method included an assumption within the financial predictions recommend by the council that every one of the scholars at St John the Divine would join Christ Church.
This was “overly optimistic and can’t be justified”, Mr Sentance said, citing a survey by the governing body of the college which suggested that only 4 pupils would move to Christ Church, with many more expected to go to a college in a neighbouring borough.
The adjudicator also disagreed with the Council’s suggestion that St John the Divine was not viable, due to falling student intake. While Mr Sentance acknowledged that the college was vulnerable to the trend, seen across much of London since Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, he considered that “in the mean time it has the potential to be viable”.
The director of education for the diocese of Southwark, Roz Cordner, said on Wednesday: “Misunderstandings in regards to the potential for the amalgamation of the colleges are deeply regrettable.
“We are grateful to all those that have participated in the method to date, and we remain committed to working with Lambeth Council and our schools to safeguard the supply of fine education for these communities and explore what the long run may now hold for these two schools.”
