TWO Church of England primary schools in south London and the Isle of Wight will now stay open, after the proposals for their closure were rejected by an adjudicator.
St John the Divine C of E Primary School, in the London Borough of Lambeth, and Arreton St George’s C of E Primary School, on the Isle of Wight, had both been slated for closure. Decisions this week by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator mean that both will now stay open.
The diocese of Portsmouth had referred the case of Arreton St George’s to the adjudicator, arguing that the process used to make the decision had been flawed. The judgment, published this week, agreed with this assessment, but the response from the school and the diocese highlighted the harm done by months of uncertainty.
The head teacher, Nicky Coates, said: “I feel sad and frustrated that so much time and energy has been wasted on a process that was flawed from the start.”
The diocesan director of education, Jeff Williams, said: “We are also not celebrating this news. It does, however, justify the stance that we took right back at the start of this process, which was to argue that the method used to select all six schools originally earmarked for closure was not fair or transparent.”
Two other C of E schools on the island had been among those set to close (News, 13 September 2024), before the Council voted to abandon most 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 schools, as well as the pupils, parents and all those who campaigned against these closures”, Mr Williams said.
In south London, strong feelings were expressed about the plans to close 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 each other’s handling and understanding of this case in robust language.”
Documents from the Council said that 98 per cent of respondents “did not 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 lack of support for the school.
The DBE’s written response to the proposal to close the school said that, if the schools were amalgamated, “it would be crucial to secure a process to identify and safeguard the core values, traditions, and educational approaches that have contributed to each school’s uniqueness.”
This, Mr Sentance wrote, suggested that the diocese had “misunderstood the implications of the proposal”, which was to close St John the Divine and facilitate growth at Christ Church — not to create what would, in effect, be a new school.
This misunderstanding was because of “errors in communication from Lambeth”, Mr Sentance said. Other errors in the process included an assumption in the financial predictions put forward by the council that all of the students at St John the Divine would join Christ Church.
This was “overly optimistic and cannot be justified”, Mr Sentance said, citing a survey by the governing body of the school which suggested that only four pupils would move to Christ Church, with many more expected to go to a school in a neighbouring borough.
The adjudicator also disagreed with the Council’s suggestion that St John the Divine was not viable, because of falling student intake. While Mr Sentance acknowledged that the school was vulnerable to the trend, seen across much of London since Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, he considered that “at the moment it has the potential to be viable”.
The director of education for the diocese of Southwark, Roz Cordner, said on Wednesday: “Misunderstandings about the potential for the amalgamation of the schools are deeply regrettable.
“We are grateful to all those who have participated in the process so far, and we remain committed to working with Lambeth Council and our schools to safeguard the provision of good education for these communities and explore what the future may now hold for these two schools.”
