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Carly Slingsby\u2019s pupils are disappearing \u2014 and fast. At the start of the year, there were 24 children in her Year 3 class. After the Easter holidays, there were 15. Now, there are just two. In other year groups, there are no children at all. <\/p>\n
Class sizes have become so small that teachers have been merging class and even year groups to stop children from feeling \u201ctoo lonely\u201d, Slingsby explains. The teacher has been fighting for months to try to keep St Dominic\u2019s Catholic Primary School in Hackney open. But in April, Hackney Council<\/a> decided to close her school along with three others at the end of the academic year. Since the decision, children have been leaving the school at an even faster rate. There are now no children in Year 5 at all \u2014 meanwhile, there is just one child in reception and four in the school\u2019s nursery.<\/p>\n There are only eight children in total at the school between Year 1 and Year 5, leaving the school \u201ceerily quiet\u201d and like a \u201cgraveyard\u201d. The school is being kept alive by its 44 Year Six pupils, who will be moving to secondary school next year.<\/p>\n Every single day, a child comes in saying it\u2019s their last day <\/p>\n Carly Slingsby, teacher<\/p>\n \u201cI have never seen so many of my colleagues in tears,\u201d Slingsby explains following the decision to shut the school. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a ghost town. It\u2019s a real shame. We had these beautiful, thriving communities inside our schools<\/a>. To see family after family leaving, it\u2019s just really heartbreaking. Every single day, a child comes in saying it\u2019s their last day.\u201d<\/p>\n London is one of the busiest cities in the world. A major global metropolis home to nearly nine million people, with 22.7 per cent of those people under the age of 18, according to the most recent census data. And yet, many of the city\u2019s primary school children have only a handful of classmates.<\/p>\n An investigation by the Standard has found that at least 30 primary schools could shut or merge across the capital by the end of the academic year, with politicians warning that the problem \u201cis only going to get worse\u201d as families continue to be driven out of the city.<\/p>\n So where are the capital\u2019s children going? A perfect storm of factors has hit London, forcing families to live elsewhere. Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the lack of affordable housing have made it extremely difficult for families to afford to live in the city any more. In some cases, parents have left London because they are concerned about the city\u2019s high crime rates. Rents have risen at a significantly higher rate than the rest of England, with a 6.9 rise in private rental prices between January 2023 and January 2024, according to recent ONS figures. To avoid the worst of the crisis, families are forced to move to Zone 6 and beyond. This has meant that children are leaving the inner zones of the city at an accelerating rate.<\/p>\n London becoming a child desert<\/p>\n It is now being felt in reception classes, older year groups of primate schools, and throughout secondary schools, too. To make matters worse, the lack of temporary accommodation available in the centre means that vulnerable families are being forced to move further out, which is making it impossible for them to travel to some London schools.<\/p>\n We are seeing a fall in birth rate that has been more prominent in London<\/p>\n Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary<\/p>\n The birth rate in London has also dropped off a cliff in recent years. There are simply not the same number of children being born in London compared to 10 years ago. The figures are staggering: data from London Councils show 27,490 fewer live births across the capital between 2012 and 2022 (a 20 per cent decline), with the change being felt most in the city\u2019s inner boroughs. Those children should be at school age: but they simply do not exist. Funding for schools is dependent on the number of pupils, but if pupils start to drop out of the school, the overheads don\u2019t drop. Schools still need the same number of teachers, and the running costs barely diminish, but schools will be allocated much less funding. As such, schools can very quickly drop into deficit and debt, as they cannot afford the running costs of the school. They then have to make really hard decisions to narrow the curriculum, cut down on extracurricular provision, cut down on teachers, or in the worst cases, close altogether. <\/p>\n Charlotte Sharman Primary School is set to close on August 31 this year<\/p>\n Google Maps <\/p>\n Last month, Southwark Council<\/a> confirmed that Charlotte Sharman Primary School in Elephant and Castle and St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School in Peckham will both close at the end of August<\/a>, meaning eight schools will have closed in the borough since 2022.<\/p>\n It is a bleak picture, and it is set to get worse. This is not a problem which is happening in one or two boroughs. It\u2019s happening across the city.<\/p>\n Leaders and staff at the Dunraven Educational Trust, which runs Goldfinch Primary School in Streatham, have said it can not see any circumstances where the school will stay open. The Standard has found that schools are expected to be merged or shut for good in at least 12 London boroughs, with parents rushing to find alternative schools for their children. Of course, once a school is stamped for closure, the children get taken out as the parents hurry to find schools for their children.<\/p>\n Goldfinch Primary School will close during the summer, the NEU has revealed<\/p>\n Google Maps<\/p>\n St Cuthbert with St Matthias CE Primary School in Earl\u2019s Court is one of the many schools struggling to balance the books due to a drop in pupil numbers. In a recent letter to parents, Carla Mu\u00f1oz Slaughter, the governors\u2019 chair, wrote: \u201cGiven that schools are funded on the number of pupils who go to the school, fewer children means a school has a reduced budget \u2014 and managing this reduction means some hard choices have to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n London\u2019s shrinking child population<\/p>\n Last September, the Education Policy Institute predicted that there would be another drop of around 52,000 primary school-aged children in London by 2028. In Lambeth alone, there are nearly 1,000 fewer children in local primary schools compared to 10 years ago, council figures show. Over in Wandsworth, as few as eight children have been turning up to start reception in some schools last year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the issue has become so bad that the maternity unit at one of the capital\u2019s biggest hospitals, the Royal Free Hospital in north London, was forced to close due to falling birth rates.<\/p>\n As the drop in birth rates continues to grow, it will work its way through the system and could hit London\u2019s secondary schools in the next five years. Already, the 300-year-old Archbishop Tenison\u2019s secondary school in Oval had to shut its doors due to a drop in pupil numbers.<\/p>\n Slingsby warns that London will become unrecognisable if schools continue to close at this rate. Speaking for her own borough, she describes Hackney Council\u2019s approach to closing schools as \u201ccut-throat\u201d.<\/p>\n Hackney Council agreed to the latest round of school closures, having already closed four schools last summer. The council has denied its approach is \u201ccut-throat\u201d and insisted that it can \u201cno longer afford to postpone making these tough decisions\u201d.<\/p>\n Jeremy Corbyn speaks to protesters in Parliament Square in March<\/p>\n Carly Slingsby<\/p>\n Slingsby believes the problem has been caused by families being forced to move \u201cto Zone 6 and beyond\u201d to find somewhere affordable to live. In extreme cases, some families have been moved to accommodation in areas such as Kent or Sheffield. Meanwhile, the teacher said parts of Hackney have become \u201cmini Kensingtons and Chelseas\u201d with the cost of living rising.<\/p>\n Days after the latest round of school closures were announced in Hackney, neighbouring Islington Council agreed to close a further two primary schools, although a legal challenge is reportedly in the works to try and keep one of the schools open.<\/p>\n Holly Stuart, who has four children at St Jude and St Paul\u2019s school in Islington<\/a>, has also warned that school closures are setting her children \u201cup for failure\u201d. The mother of six is particularly worried about her young son, who is neurodivergent and may be unable to perform well in a larger primary school when his school closes. Stuart told the Standard: \u201cMy children are not statistics. They are not robots. Where they are, they are cared for. They are treated as individuals. They have a really good education.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018More schools will struggle\u2019<\/p>\n It is a view shared by her 10-year-old daughter Tayler Wootten. Speaking at a recent protest to try and save her school, Tayler told crowds: \u201cOur teachers and parents have been trying their best to save our schools \u2014 so our parents don\u2019t have to look for new schools and our teachers new jobs after working so hard to make sure their kids have a good education. Even though we are a small school, we have big hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n Campaigners and experts have also told the Standard that school closures may spread deeper into outer London boroughs in the coming years. But it\u2019s already happening. Schools in two outer London boroughs, Newham and Hounslow, are facing closure later this year.<\/p>\n Protesters outside St Jude and St Paul\u2019s Primary School in March<\/p>\n Duncan Bedford<\/p>\n Calverton Primary School, near London City Airport, has become one of the most recent schools to be put at risk of closure. Newham Council has warned that the school faces a \u201csignificant financial challenge\u201d due to a drop in pupil numbers, with the school roughly half full.<\/p>\n Calverton, a \u201cforest school\u201d that often teaches children in nature settings, has a high proportion of children with special educational needs (Send) and has pupils travelling from as far away as Basildon in Essex. Liam O\u2019Hanrahan, a teacher at the school, believes it will be a \u201ctragedy\u201d if the school were to close.<\/p>\n So what is causing the exodus in these areas? O\u2019Hanrahan says he first saw the price of housing and renting increase in the area around seven years ago. \u201cWe have seen a real reduction,\u201d he tells the Standard. \u201cEvery time that housing is built there is the hope or the promise that there will be families moving in, but they don\u2019t seem to. Or if they do, by the time their child is of school age they\u2019re looking to move on. Flats are being built right next to the school but staff have very little confidence that anyone with a family is going to move into them.\u201d<\/p>\n The teacher believes there needs to be more support and funding from the Government for children with Send or schools like Calverton will continue to slip into a deficit. \u201cWe can judge a society by how well we look after those with the most need,\u201d he adds. \u201cRight now it feels like we are really failing. Until that changes, more schools will struggle in a similar way.\u201d<\/p>\n We want those children to be educated locally so they can contribute back to our great city <\/p>\n Florence Eshalomi, MP<\/p>\n Vauxhall and Camberwell Green MP Florence Eshalomi also highlighted how one of the first places that is cut is a school\u2019s Send provision, leaving families who need the most support with even more challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, we have to build family-sized affordable social housing so that our families can stay in London and their children can be educated locally,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can not have a situation where we have our thriving capital soulless without those children in schools. We want those children to be educated locally so they can contribute back to our great city.\u201d<\/p>\n Vauxhall and Camberwell Green Labour MP Florence Eshalomi<\/p>\n PA Archive<\/p>\n The MP pointed out how many families are also being moved outside of the capital as councils are struggling to house them in London. Around 90,000 children in the capital are homeless and living in temporary accommodation arranged by a London borough, the equivalent of one in every 21 children, figures from London Councils show.<\/p>\n A recent parliamentary report showed that Enfield Council was considering buying properties in Liverpool to use as temporary accommodation \u201cdue to a shortage of affordable accommodation in the borough\u201d.<\/p>\n London\u2019s school crisis has already been discussed in Westminster, with Eshalomi leading a debate on school closures in London in 2023. But she told the Standard she had \u201cno luck\u201d since then in getting further action to be taken on the issue.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/charlotte-sharman-primary-school.jpg\")
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