London boroughs to close or merge 32 primary schools as birth rate slump empties classrooms

Thirty-two primary schools across 11 London boroughs will close or merge by September 2028, according to plans published by councils this week, as the capital grapples with a fall in the number of young children that has left some schools with fewer than 15 pupils in a reception class designed for 30.

Reception admissions in inner London have fallen by 17% since 2019, driven by a falling birth rate, families leaving during the pandemic and the cost of housing. Lambeth, Southwark, Hackney and Islington between them have 6,100 surplus primary places, a figure projected to rise to 9,000 by 2030. Because schools are funded per pupil, a half-empty school cannot afford a teacher for every year group.

The closures announced this week include four schools in Southwark, five in Lambeth and three in Hackney, as well as the first in outer boroughs including Ealing and Brent, where the decline has arrived more slowly. In most cases the plan is to merge two schools on one site and convert the other building to nursery, special needs or community use.

“We have a school with 97 children in a building for 420,” said Cllr Olumide Bakare, cabinet member for children at one south London council. “It costs the same to heat, the same to insure, and the head is teaching year 4 because there is no money for another teacher. Nobody wants to close a school. We also cannot run one on fresh air.”

Siobhan Reilly, head of a two-form entry primary in Lambeth that will merge with its neighbour in 2027, said the decision had been “sad, inevitable and about two years too late”. “We have been mixed-age for three years. The parents have been brilliant about it, but the truth is that a 23-pupil year 5/6 class with one teacher is not what anybody chose,” she said.

Parents at several schools have organised to oppose the closures. Tariq Mahmood, whose daughter is in year 2 at a Southwark school marked for closure, said the council had “found the numbers it wanted”. “They say the roll is falling. There are three estates being built within a mile of this school. Where do they think those children are going to go?” he said. Southwark said the developments would be completed after 2029 and that the children would be accommodated in the merged school.

The pattern is not confined to London. Councils in Brighton, Bristol and Edinburgh have also announced primary closures this year, and the Department for Education forecasts that primary rolls in England will fall by 400,000, or 9%, by 2030. Secondary rolls will peak in 2027 and then begin to fall.

The National Association of Head Teachers said the government needed a national strategy for falling rolls rather than “leaving 150 councils to manage decline one school at a time”. The DfE said it was “working with local authorities to ensure every child has a good school place”.