Southwark schools in financial difficulty - Dog Kennel Hill?

[Soylent Green]

The government's levelling up strategy is based on taking money out of London schools and giving it to schools in the north. Southwark schools lost ?500 per pupil per year. That has had a massive impact on schools' funding, regardless of falling rolls. Primary schools throughout (South) London are making their TAs redundant to make ends meet - meaning no additional support for children in the classroom, which will impact learning but schools' hands are tied. It is a dire situation created by a ruinous Tory government.

[Brian up the hill]

Levelling up always meant levelling down!

[legalalien]

Bit of an update, the proposed school places planning document is on the agenda for next week?s cabinet meeting / on the website.

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s102233/Report%20and%20appendices%20Pupil%20place%20planning%202021.pdf

There is a major oversupply of primary school places in the borough and sufficient secondary capacity for the foreseeable (with a future oversupply of secondary places predicted)

Proposed (currently in the consultation process) reduction in intake at six primaries including DKH which is not going to help its numbers stack up, I guess. No concrete proposals for closures / mergers but a strong hint that options will need to be considered - giving the way school funding works ?it is very likely that in the not too distant future there will be insufficient pupil numbers to justify operating the current number of primary schools the Council currently maintains.?

Rolls at Dulwich schools not falling, rather the catchment areas are growing, as less demand from local residents frees up spaces for children living further afield:

?PA5 is a net importer of pupils, gaining around 80 pupils across all age groups. Harris East Dulwich and Judith Kerr Primary Free School take a majority of its pupils from outside PA5, the latter mainly from Lambeth

Schools in the Dulwich planning area remain extremely popular with applicants from adjoining planning areas ? this is evidenced by the 15% drop in births outlined above, but a 32% increase in demand for reception places over the same time frame

There is a high risk that providing any additional capacity in this area would be abstractive of other planning areas and schools from neighbouring boroughs, and would actually not meet demand from local residents ? indeed, it may reduce the percentage of local children attending schools in Dulwich

Around 30% of pupils in this planning area come from outside the planning area, mainly from within Southwark and a small percentage from outside Southwark

The net percentage inflow of Southwark children from other planning areas is (+15%) the highest in Southwark

 Conversely, around 30% of PA5 resident children attend state primary schools attend a school in another Southwark planning area or a school outside Southwark, about equally divided between the two.

 Conversely, Bessemer Grange Primary in PA4 takes around 30% of its pupils from PA5 residents.?

(Note these figures don?t take into account the independent schools)

As Southwark notes in its report, it doesn?t have the power to prevent academies (including those in the Dulwich area) expanding their capacity and realising the identified risk of sucking children out of schools in surrounding areas and threatening their viability. This seems crazy to me but according to the report that?s how things work.

Reasons for overcapacity: some unquantified references to Brexit, possibly people moving out of London due to COVID, GLA forecasts not being accurate, housing affordability for families also an issue. I tend to think the latter is a big one given a lot of the problem seems to be in the North West of the borough where a lot of gentrification has happened / estates replaced with private housing developments..

[intexasatthe moment]

Thank you for this thread, legal. Fascinating and scary .

Apologies for ignorance but what does PA5 stand for?

[Nigello]

Does this mean that classroom numbers will necessarily fall? If so, could this be a plus-point from this situation?

[Penguin68]

Apologies for ignorance but what does PA5 stand for?

It is the geographic planning area (for primary schools I'm guessing, but maybe for secondary as well?) centred on (broadly) Dulwich. A search suggests 'Dulwich Old Wards College, East Dulwich , Village New Wards Dulwich Hill, Dulwich Village, Dulwich ... Dulwich Dulwich Village Infants Harris ...'

[legalalien]

Yes, that?s right.

I imagine class sizes drop slightly but then so does funding, then perhaps a need to formally drop a class and then some people go to nearby schools and top up class sizes there. I assume that given the way funding works (and given schools all indicate that they are underfunded), schools actually want biggish classes to maximise their income?

[Nigello]

I don't understand - how come it is permissible to go across council borders if there are schools that have places to fill in your home council? Or have I misunderstood? Can't really understand the idea of local level school administration - why not be national, like in France?

[Ossito]

Academies - which most schools now are - set their own admission criteria. Whilst these are usually distance based they aren?t always. For example, Kingsdale School admits by lottery so whilst in Southwark, children living nearby have no more chance of getting in than a child in (by way of extreme example) Hackney.

Equally if you live on the border between 2 boroughs, your nearest school might be across the border and that is likely to be the one that you get into.

However, if you like a school further away and it has spaces, you would get a place even if a school in your home borough has spaces. Parent choice in action. Of course, this choice only works in practice if there is spare capacity in the system, which then becomes unaffordable?

[katgod]

Social cleansing in the north of the borough around elephant and aylesham estates causes families in social

Housing to be moved out and expensive two bed flats not suitable for families or affordable to the original residents move in leading to falling rolls in schools near walworth road.

[Ossito]

It?s interesting that Dog Kennel Hill School is to shrink, a few years after the DKH Estate started to be sold off?

[Nigello]

Dog Kennel Hill is far from Walworth Road, so how does that fit in with its shrinking rollcall?

[Ossito]

My comment was about the possibly effect of the recent DKH estate changes. It didn?t mention the Walworth Road.

[legalalien]

I think Southwark?s asking it to reduce entry by 30 kids at entry level to address overcapacity generally, rather than its roll falling naturally - I don?t know whether that?s the case or not. I think DKH is a ?Community School? meaning Southwark can control its intake- it can?t do that with academies. So the ability to control coupled with financial problems may have suggested it to Southwark?

If I have this right, the significant oversupply coupled with the control issue would seem to make a reduction in the number of non-academy schools inevitable. Am I wrong?

[intexasatthe moment]

Seems like it to me legal .Poor old shattered education system .

[motorbird83]

Southwark didn't calculate incorrectly.

In both instances they said a primary school and a secondary school were not needed in this part of the borough. It was a campaign led by parents that over-ruled their analysis. The need for secondaries is in the north of the borough and there is no need for additional primaries at all. The local schools also opposed the new openings...

Anyhow, falling rolls are a problem across London and significantly exacerbated by families leaving London due to COVID and Brexit. This is a serious problem as running costs are largely fixed but funding is per pupil so a number of schools are no longer viable and will be merged. This process has already started in the north of Southwark where the primary school numbers are most dire due to changing demographics.

[motorbird83]

This isn't a problem unique to Southwark, its across London. Some articles on the point but north and east London are quite badly impacted:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-schools-close-families-choose-move-covid-b942476.html

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/apr/16/primary-schools-in-england-record-steep-fall-in-demand

Nigello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't understand - how come it is permissible to

> go across council borders if there are schools

> that have places to fill in your home council? Or

> have I misunderstood? Can't really understand the

> idea of local level school administration - why

> not be national, like in France?

[legalalien]

Thanks motorbird83, interesting background and that standard article in particular confirms my thinking, particularly around a potential scrabble for pupils and LAs not having sufficient powers to control the situation. I wonder if there?s enough public awareness particularly among parents applying to schools. It?s a difficult one as if you tell people some schools have problems there?s potential for a sort of ?run on the bank? situation that speeds up decline. But I always think transparency and lots of advance planning is best.

[motorbird83]

Politicians job is to get re-elected so despite the evidence they bowed to pressure in both instances. Parents simply argued that Southwark's projections were wrong as evidenced by all the bulges that were needed at the time to deal with the demographic birth surge from about 10 years ago. Anyway, what a waste of public money.

Dulwich Village Infants catchment went out 4km this year which is crazy. Many schools are running at below capacity and will need to cut back on the level of provision (extracurricular, learning support etc) to balance budgets which has begun already as part of funding bailouts.

After that some schools will have to formally reduce count or close as St John's did this summer.

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/southwark-primary-school-in-over-200k-debt-set-to-close-as-pupil-numbers-plummet-2/

[scarlettbanks]

Ossito Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It?s interesting that Dog Kennel Hill School is to

> shrink, a few years after the DKH Estate started

> to be sold off?

Hi Ossito,

I hadn't heard about DKH Estates being sold off. Do you have any more info on that? Are families in council houses being forced to leave?

[legalalien]

I really hadn?t realised quite how much academies privatise the education system until now - I was all in favour of some aspects eg more freedom around curriculum / style but hadn?t appreciated how little governmental control there was over admissions and numbers. They seem almost like state-funded private schools in a sense, I can imagine how those in wealthier catchments can top up funds from parent contributions / well off PTAs / economies of scale and more savvy executives - I guess that?s great if everyone gets to go to one but they don?t. Motorbird83 if you can point me in the direction of any further reading I?d be interested (otherwise Mr Google will doubtless help me).

[motorbird83]

There is government has control over Academies, but its central government rather than LA control. The opening of both the Charter ED and Harris ED still had to be approved by the DfE. The poor allocation of resources is really the result of a political process that prioritises the concerns of vocal middle class voters over data.

I don't think academies are really the problem here. Plenty of academies are feeling the financial impact as well as LA schools.

[katgod]

For info about local

Estates being regenerated but there residents not benefiting follow 35% on Twitter @35percent_EAN

Many Southwark estates are redeveloped or new developments built with a threshold of social housing stated in the plans that is not met in reality. Elephant estate is a prime example.

[Penguin68]

is really the result of a political process that prioritises the concerns of vocal middle class voters over data.

How unlike the home life of our on LTNs!

[legalalien]

Yes Penguin, I?m sensing a theme.

Motorbird so DfE approve schools opening but after that don?t control their intake? Or do they technically have the power but just don?t exercise it in practice?

I?m getting boring now but I can?t get my head around LAs having to try and manage pupil places without having any control over academy intakes. Is this because the initial Labour policy was that failing schools could academise and it would only be a small proportion that probably weren?t super-attractive? And then (I have been googling), the coalition govt introduced converter academies so better schools / everyone could convert, and this current problem is an unintended consequence?