It’s a Friday lunchtime in July, and the playground at Galleywall Primary School in South London is packed full of kids playing and having fun.
The Bermondsey school, which opened under City of London Academies Trust in 2016, is preparing for the end of the academic year and everyone is in good spirits as the summer break is about to begin.
Come September, the school will open its doors again, but next year will feel slightly different as there will be one less Reception class full of kids. This is because Southwark is one of a growing number of inner city London boroughs which has seen a sharp decline in pupil numbers at its schools in recent years, and is forcing some of them to close because they simply can’t afford to stay open anymore.
In Southwark, the number of schools to have closed since 2022 has now jumped to eight. Charlotte Sharman Primary School in Elephant and Castle and St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary in Peckham became the seventh and eighth schools to shut, after Southwark Council made the “difficult” decision to agree to close them during a Cabinet meeting in June.
Other boroughs, including Hackney and Islington, have also seen several schools close down for good, despite efforts from campaigners and the local community to keep them open. Various factors, including Brexit, the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and an overall lack of affordable housing in London are causing families to move to outer London boroughs or outside of the capital completely.
Yet despite the bleakness of it all, Galleywall’s Head Teacher Martin Blain believes there’s still a positive that can come from it for families. Mr Blain told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “One thing that is challenging us is the numbers of children in Southwark going down.
“We’ve had to reduce our number just because that is the number there is, but I just feel if I was a parent living a mile a way, normally you wouldn’t get into a school like this, you can’t be too far but these days you actually could, you could come a greater distance so you could be a little more picky.”
He added: “You could find a school which looked like it was doing exactly what you wanted to do and apply from a greater distance and get in, so in some ways this is a big advantage for parents but at the moment it’s just a bit of a challenge. We’re mostly full, most year groups are full, it’s just the ones that are coming through which are the ones where there’s that gap in numbers.”
Mr Blain went on to say because most of the places are now allocated on distance, rather than having siblings there for instance, the school is seeing more families coming from further afield due to there being capacity. He explained: “We’ve got people that come in at all different levels, what we’ve seen is as we’ve worked with them year-on-year, we’re able to achieve better things.
“So the aim is that this will be a school with the highest of outcomes but with a very, very mixed intake so to me that is the ideal of what a school should do; we’re not selective in any way, whoever applies, gets in.”
In January 2025, the school was rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted and was praised by inspectors for looking after its pupils well and creating a happy and inclusive space.
Inspectors picked up on the school’s “high-quality cultural enrichment” and said performances at St Paul’s Cathedral along with projects on puppetry workshops help to enrich the curriculum. Inspectors said: “The school wants its pupils to be aspirational. Its commitment to providing pupils with the best possible experience permeates the excellent curriculum.
“Pupils respond to this by working hard in lessons. They succeed highly across all subjects and achieve exceptionally well in writing by the end of Year 6.”
Mr Blain said the school has “a lot to celebrate”, and added: “If you look on our website and the weekly newsletters, there’s a lot of things that we’ve done and I’m very proud of that because it’s hard work for the staff but it’s incredibly beneficial for the children.
“Some of them wouldn’t necessarily go to a museum, their parents may not think of it or they might not have the resources to do it, but we are providing all of this stuff so when they leave by the end of Year 6 they will have a really good experience about living in a London suburb or inner city London and doing everything there is to do within the area.”
Galleywall Primary School is located on Galleywall Road and is for ages 4 to 11.
Don’t miss out on the biggest local stories. Sign up to our MySouthLondon newsletter HERE for all the latest daily news and more.
