South London schoolchildren have been left scrambling after an Oval secondary gave them just four months to find a new school following a shock closure announcement.
300-year-old Archbishop Tenison’s School will shut its doors in August due to “falling pupil admissions”, according to the Southwark Diocesan Board (SDB) that runs the school.
28 primary schools across Lambeth and Southwark are already set to amalgamate over the next two years and this latest announcement is a reminder that secondary schools are also vulnerable.
Both Southwark and Lambeth councils have previously said that Brexit, covid-19 and declining birth rates are the cause of falling pupil admissions.
Southwark Council has also accepted that regeneration could be to blame.
In a statement, the SDB said: “Due to the significant and ongoing challenges with falling pupil and application numbers in schools across London Local Authorities and the London Borough of Lambeth, and after considerable review subject to a listening period, it has been proposed to close The Archbishop Tenison’s Secondary School, Oval by the end of the academic year (August 2023).
“We understand the importance of continuing education for the students impacted by this decision and are working closely with parents, the school and colleagues at Lambeth Council, who are in the process of providing offer details for pupil placements in the academic year 2023-2024.”
Although it is not run by Lambeth Council, the local authority will help students find new places.
The council has said year ten pupils will be made a “priority” and will all be offered places at St Gabriel’s College – a fifteen-minute walk away.
Students in year seven to nine will be offered places at ‘good’ rated schools elsewhere but parents are free to apply to other schools if they wish.
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Founded in 1685 by Vicar Thomas Tenison, Tenison’s is one of London’s oldest secondary schools.
The SDB took the school over in 2019 after it was rated ‘inadequate’ and it hasn’t been inspected since.
Last month, Southwark Council announced that it had recommended that eight schools amalgamate with one another although it would not name which ones.
Four other Southwark primary schools – St Jude’s and Charlotte Sharman Primary School on the one hand and Cobourg and Camelot on the other – have also announced mergers, taking the total to twelve.
Lambeth Council has recommended a strategy that would see sixteen schools merge by 2025 although it is unclear which schools have been earmarked.
While schools across south London struggle to fill surplus places, more than 30 new free schools are in the pipeline for London, creating 14,500 new places, it was recently revealed.
Last February, London Councils, the cross-party group representing London’s local authorities urged the government to be wary of how new schools could destabilise existing institutions.
Ian Edwards, London Councils’ executive member for children and young people, said: “London schools are at a crossroads. Careful management of school places supply is essential to ensuring children across the capital get access to the sustainable, high-quality education they need.”
He added: “We are asking the Department for Education to work with London boroughs to ensure no new free schools are approved in areas where there is clear evidence that demand for school places is decreasing, as this could destabilise existing schools.”
