Southwark Council’s Cabinet has confirmed the “difficult” closures of two primary schools at the end of August amid a declining birth rate and a growing number of families choosing to move outside of London.
Charlotte Sharman Primary School in Elephant and Castle and St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School in Peckham will both close on August 31, 2025 despite efforts to keep them open. They become the seventh and eighth schools in Southwark to close since 2022.
During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning (June 17), members approved of the two school closures after agreeing recommendations set out in reports. As he introduced the first report relating to the closure of Charlotte Sharman, Southwark Council Leader, Kieron Williams, said the overall process had been “really difficult”.
Cllr Williams said: “The two decisions that we have got to contemplate this morning as Cabinet I know are very difficult ones for people who are very attached to their schools as I am to my children’s schools, so we understand they are very sensitive decisions and difficult ones to work through.”
Jasmine Ali, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Refugees, said it was with “a heavy heart” he agreed to close the “much-loved” school. In June 2023, a report was presented to Cabinet with a list of schools including Charlotte Sharman for pupil place reduction, amalgamation or closure.
There were talks to merge Charlotte Sharman and another school called St Jude’s Primary however this plan fell through and Charlotte Sharman continued to struggle financially. A change.org petition to save the school from closure which has received more than 1,000 signatures has accused Southwark Council of not fully exploring other options such as merging with another school, securing additional funding or increasing enrolment outreach.
David Workman, Chair of Governors, told Cabinet Members on Tuesday: “Since last year we have been engaging willingly and effectively with the local authority to look at our financial situation and try and put mitigations in place. This comes on the back of the merger process with St Jude’s which took 18 months to kind of come to [a conclusion] followed by entering into a licensed deficit programme – so two fairly hefty programmes we’ve gone through which have taken governors and staff a lot of time and focus.”
He went on to say: “There are alternative options we have put forward and to not give us the time to act more decisively and creatively after those two lengthy processes which have taken our bandwidth as it were, is to possibly neglect what might be possible in terms of preserving the school community.”
Mr Workman read out a statement on behalf of a Year 3 pupil, which said: “I’m feeling very sad the school is closing, it’s unfair people have just started and now they have to leave and they can’t play with their new friends – how would you feel if you couldn’t play with your friends? Charlotte Sharman is like a family to us, the teachers are like our mum and dad and our friends are like our brothers and sisters to us. Please keep our school open.”
After Cabinet Members finished asking their questions, they proceeded to move onto the recommendations of the report and agreed to close the school. Cllr Ali then moved onto the second school closure which concerned St Mary Magdalene.
She said: “Colleagues, again I am very upset to bring yet another school which we’re proposing for closure and this time is the much-loved St Mary Magdalene. Over the last five years the Reception numbers have been at or below 20 pupils.
“Again we know the issues here [are] falling birth rates and 35per cent of children leaving London. In my own ward, it’s been a hot spot of regeneration yet… families are not staying so that’s a massive issue. As is the case with Charlotte Sharman, the decision to close St Mary Magdalene has not been taken lightly.”
Sonia Phippard, Chair of Governors at the school, said it had served the community for 170 years and said Tuesday marked a “very, very sad day”. Ms Phippard said: “We do continue to believe that with more imaginative engagement with the council, not in the most recent months but before, there were solutions that would have preserved some of what is very, very special about this school.
“It has been noticeable how many different vulnerabilities and needs it meets within our community and those numbers and that proportion have only increased even as numbers have been small.”
She went on to say governors along with senior leadership had worked “extremely effectively” to keep the deficit down.
She said the school had worked very hard with council officers and the Southwark Diocesan Board of Education (SDBE) to try and find solutions and to ensure if the closure was going to happen, it would happen in the “best possible way” for staff.
After approving both agendas, Cllr Williams made an additional recommendation that a report be produced on the “lessons learned” from school closures in Southwark over recent years which will be presented to Cabinet later in autumn.
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