Parents ‘really concerned’ about how children with special needs will react if primary school mergers go ahead

Save Colvestone campaigners outside the Town Hall in May. Photograph: Julia Gregory

Parents have spoken of their concern that children with special needs could take time to settle at a new school if they are forced to move.

Two Hackney primaries face closure, and four others are likely to merge, because of falling pupil numbers.

The council is currently consulting with families about the proposals.

Education bosses blame the move on declining birth rates, Brexit, cost-of-living increases, and housing costs – with families moving away.

Under the plans, De Beauvoir Primary School in Tottenham Road, and Randal Cremer Primary School in Ormsby Street, could close in September 2024.

Hackney Council is also considering merging Colvestone Primary School and Princess May Primary School onto the Princess May site in September 2024, and Baden Powell Primary School and Nightingale Primary School onto the Nightingale site in September 2024.

Between them, the schools have seen a £4m hit to their finances because they lose government funding with empty places.

Joy Powell, who has children at Baden Powell school, said it took some children with special needs two years to settle there.

“We know all the staff, teachers know the pupils. How are our children going to settle down in a bigger school?”

She said she is “really concerned”.

The council has pledged to work with families and to ensure children with special needs get suitable education if the move goes ahead.

Across London, schools are facing the problem of funding cuts because of 84,384 surplus places this year – the majority in primary schools.

Councillors from Hackney’s cross-party children and young people’s scrutiny commission quizzed education boss Paul Senior about the plans.

He told them it was a difficult decision and added: “We are dealing with unprecedented times in the scale of what’s coming. We have to make the best decisions.”

Parents whose children attend Colvestone primary in Dalston are campaigning against plans to merge the school with Princess May.

Mike Cooter told the commission that Hackney Education had already been working with the school, helping it to cut its historic deficit, and it has a partnership with an existing federation which has given it some financial benefits and investment in the school bulding.

“Why go to Plan B before you’ve given Plan A a chance?” he said.

Parents said Colvestone is very different from Princess May, which is a two-form entry school on a busy main road in an “imposing” building.

They pointed out that if the council goes ahead with its plans, some parents will not send their children to Princess May, which they warned could put that school at jeopardy of closure with a “financially debilitating ‘just-over’ single-form roll”.

Paul Senior said the council had considered distances and time to travel to other schools in drawing up its plans and added “parental choice is important”.

He said the council thought the option of going to Princess May was “a good offer”.

Colvestone parents Chris Davis and Mike Cooter also said 24 per cent of the pupils have special needs and parents picked the school because it is small.

They said children with autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder “suffer greatly when placed in larger two-form environments”.

The council’s consultation closes on 16 July.

The cabinet will make a final decision in December.