Teachers at three middle schools in Northumberland are currently on strike following the council's failure to engage in meaningful consultation over plans to close the schools, reports the NASUWT [1]. In a move that has put 143 jobs at the school at risk, the council wants to close Glendale, Tweedmouth, and Berwick Middle Schools as part of a restructuring to a primary and secondary school system. The NASUWT has been trying for months to secure firm commitments from the Council and Berwick Partnership Headteachers to put in place real mitigations to avoid unnecessary compulsory job losses.

Teachers initiated seven days of strike action at the beginning of this month, with further action scheduled from October 22-24, combined with demonstrations on Berwick Bridge.

Northumberland County Council had committed to protecting staff from job losses, but they have so far failed to honour this pledge, says the union. Demanding a say, teachers are asking the Council and partnership headteachers to engage in a full consultation exercise.

"The Council are behaving appallingly in refusing to do everything possible to save jobs and engage in a full consultation with those affected," said Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary. "Our members have enormous talent, expertise and teaching experience that can be used for the benefit of children and young people in Northumberland. But instead of finding imaginative and workable solutions to mitigate the reorganisation, they are refusing to work with us and the members and trying to force through these jobs cuts. Members are standing up to this and fighting for their jobs and so have no other option bit to take further strike action."

The closures are part of an unfolding crisis in particularly primary education in Britain, which is seeing scores of schools under threat of closure across the country.

Also this month, Hackney Council announced potential closures of several primary schools due to over 20% of reception places being unfilled. The council acknowledged that these closures are necessary to ensure financial viability, despite the emotional and community impact. The closures have sparked protests from parents and teachers who argue that the shortage of affordable housing is driving families out of inner-city areas like Hackney, exacerbating a decline in pupil numbers. [2]

Worker's Weekly recently reported that the Isle of Wight Council plans to close a devastating six primary schools at once across the island next year, including Arreton, Brading, Cowes, Godshill, Oakfield, and Wroxhall. The island has long suffered from the generalised crisis in education and other social programs. Now these closures will force affected children to attend alternative schools by July next year, in some cases long distances from their homes. Parents and children have been organising themselves, meeting and discussing the situation, and staging protests outside affected schools. [3]

Closures are not only affecting primary schools. Back in May, it was reported that 324-year-old Lambeth High School for Girls in Tulse Hill, south London, is set to close due to falling pupil numbers. The school, which currently employs over 50 staff, will close to Years 7, 8, and 9 in August and will close completely next summer after older pupils have completed their exams. The school teaches some 400 school students. The closure follows a similar announcement by Archbishop Tenison's School in Vauxhall in April. According to Lambeth Council's Member for Children and Young People, Ben Kind, the closure was out of council control due to the school's academy status. [4]

The argument is put that primary school closures are the result of a decline in pupil numbers, particularly in urban areas, driven by falling birth rates and demographic changes. Further factors cited are ongoing after-effects of the Covid pandemic, during which schools were closed to most pupils, and fallout from the crisis in concrete safety, leading to partial or full closures. The combined effect has been an intensification of financial pressure on schools.

A report published in April by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) warned that falling pupil numbers could lead to schools losing over £1 billion in funding by 2030 [5]. The report suggests that schools may be forced to consider cost-cutting measures, mergers with other schools, and closures due to demographic changes.

The EPI projects the greatest falls in pupil numbers will be in London and the North East of England. Under a scenario where all schools receive a 0.5% real terms increase in pupil-led per-pupil funding each year, the overall funding for primary and secondary state schools will fall to £41.6 billion by 2029/30, down from a peak of £42.7 billion in 2024/25, according to the model used in report. North East is projected to experience the largest 12.7% decline in pupil numbers between 2022-23 and 2028-29 years, while Lambeth is projected to see England's largest primary drop in pupil numbers at primary level by 24.5%. All regions are projected to see a decrease in primary school funding between 2023-24 and 2029-30.

General secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, said: "Schools are already strapped for cash - and even with a dip in pupil numbers, any further cuts to funding would be a catastrophe for our children. Instead, the drop in pupil numbers provides the government with an opportunity - by maintaining current funding levels, schools could keep current staffing levels, paving the way for smaller class sizes, and targeted support for pupils." [6]

"It would be a waste to allow smaller schools to close, only for there to be a need for more places in those areas further down the line," he also pointed out.

A Department for Education spokesperson stressed the figures were "speculative" and funding was "subject to future spending reviews". "It is for local authorities and academy trusts to balance the supply and demand of school places, in line with changing demographics, as they have done for many years." They added: "We are increasing school funding to £60.7bn next year, the highest level ever in real terms per pupil. Every school will receive a per-pupil increase in funding, and the national funding formula makes sure that funding is distributed fairly based on the needs of each school and their pupils." [7]

The wave of school closures indicates a profound crisis unfolding in education. Posed in terms of "viability", this crisis centres on the right to education and the aims of the education system, and how or whether the economy is directed to guaranteeing that right.

Students from schools through to universities have long since taken up the principle that education is a right, not a privilege. The closures reveal that, in place of this right, the education system is aimed in some other direction; they raise the questions of the aims of education, what interests it serves, and how it should be funded.

Changing demographics leaving certain areas with fewer children itself raises further questions, but those issues aside, the result can only be a "surplus" of school places relative to a defined standard class size and a system of funding allocated per child that enforces this size through restricting the money going to schools with fewer children and the opening of schools to market forces, making schools with smaller classes become "unviable" to run.

A system aimed at meeting the right of all to education at the highest level that society can provide - an education not narrowly focussed to employment by competing private interests, but that exists to aid the all-sided development of every individual to enable their full participation in society; a system that fosters the modern democratic personality, both collectively and in individual form - would see smaller class sizes as a positive thing, and would strive to not only make such schools viable but to be fully equipped and staffed in every sense.

Schools, of whatever size, add massive value by educating the young; it is how this value should be paid for that is not seriously addressed. Rather than being opened up to plunder by business through, for example, the anti-academic system of academies, business should pay for the education from which they benefit.

The conception that there is a "surplus" of classroom places is fundamentally at odds with right to education. Closing schools will solve no problems and will only deepen the education crisis.

Notes
1. "Northumberland teachers strike to save jobs", NASUWT, October 7, 2024
https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/article-listing/northumberland-teachers-strike-to-save-jobs.html
2. "Parents and teachers furious as council mulls more primary school closures", Joe Steen, Hackney Citizen, October 4, 2024
https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2024/10/04/parents-teachers-furious-council-primary-school-closures
3. "Closing Village Schools Will Only Deepen Education Crisis", Workers' Weekly, September 21, 2024
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-24/ww24-23/ww24-23-07.htm
4. "Lambeth school announces closure amid falling numbers", BBC News, May 13, 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65581380
5. "School funding model: Effect of falling school rolls", Education Policy Institute, April 11, 2024
https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/school-funding-model-effect-of-falling-rolls
6. "Head teachers say cuts in school funding a 'catastrophe for our children'", Rose Tremlett, NAHT, April 11, 2024
https://www.naht.org.uk/News/Latest-comments/Press-room/ArtMID/558/ArticleID/2387/Head-teachers-say-cuts-in-school-funding-a-catastrophe-for-our-children
7. "Schools could be forced to close amid drop in pupils - think tank", BBC News, April 11, 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68786770

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