It will ‘amalgamate’ with a school a mile awayThis article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn moreHotwells Primary School(Image: Google Maps)

Plans have been unveiled to close one of Bristol’s smallest primary schools and merge it with a bigger school a mile away.

A consultation has been launched into the ‘amalgamation’ of Hotwells Primary School and Cathedral Primary School, which will see both school sites remain open, but with infants and reception classes staying at Hotwells, and junior pupils being educated at the Cathedral site. The school would keep the Cathedral Primary School name.

Both schools are part of the Cathedral Schools Trust, and Cathedral Primary, which opened in 2013, is a feeder school for the secondary school Bristol Cathedral Choir School.

Parents have been told the number of pupils at Hotwells Primary has been dropping from more than 180 back in 2021 to just over 100 now. That has also meant the school is in financial trouble, with a cumulative budget deficit of nearly £400,000.

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The plan is for Hotwells Primary School to close and be taken over, with the new Cathedral Primary School becoming a two-form entry school on a split site, with reception and key stage 1 at the Hotwells site, and year two upwards on the Cathedral Primary School site.

“This is a proposal at this stage and it is very important to us to consult with everyone who has an interest before any final decisions are made,” said a consultation document issued by both schools. “As the people closest to our schools, you understand the local community better than anyone else. We’re keen to gauge your local knowledge and hear your thoughts on how our proposals could affect the area,” they added.

“This proposal is primarily driven by the ambition to ensure strong and sustainable schools in the area that will provide the highest quality primary education for pupils. It is intended to maintain provision on both school sites and ensure that there continues to be a school serving the Hotwells/Harbourside community, address concerns around the volume of students on the Cathedral Primary School site on College Square by providing a more appropriate learning environment for the youngest children on the Hotwells Primary School site, and support the city with the aim of reducing places across primary schools,” they added.

In a letter to parents, the current headteacher of Hotwells Primary, Kee Jones, announced the proposal and said it would mean the school would ‘close in its current form’.

She said that she was writing with ‘a very heavy heart”, and the consultation was a ‘significant and emotional moment for all of us’.

The infants playground at Hotwells Primary School (Image: Copyright Unknown)

The consultation will see a series of meetings, including a public meeting, and the trust is open for correspondence and submissions on the proposal.

Staff at Hotwells School have a consultation meeting on June 10, right before a parents and carers evening from 5.30pm to 6.30pm that day.

There will be a public meeting in the form of a drop in session from 2pm to 3.30pm at Hotwells Primary School on June 12. The following week, staff and parents and carers at Cathedral Primary School will have consultation meetings on June 18.