Mother-of-four Alicia Perez with her four-year-old walking to Robert Blair primary on Monday

MOTHERS at a Highbury primary facing closure are walking more than an hour with their young children to the next nearest schools to show the reality of their future school run if the closure goes ahead.

Highbury Quadrant is one of two schools that could be shut by Islington Council this summer because of falling rolls – that is, fewer children on the register.

Parent Alicia Perez, who expected her youngest child to start at Highbury Quadrant in September, took him on the 1.43-mile, 72-minute walk to Robert Blair Primary in the Cally on Monday.

She said: “My four-year-old is the one they’re asking to walk 1.5 miles every day, twice a day for 39 weeks,” adding that the council’s report says “it’s OK for our kids to walk 1.5 miles, that it will show the resilience of Highbury school children.

“I don’t want my four-year-old to prove to the world his resilience.”

On Wednesday, Maya Baydanova and her five-year-old son joined Ms Perez for another potential school run in the rain, this time to Grafton Primary in Holloway, 1.2 miles away, which took around an hour.

In the UK, the statutory walking distance to school is two miles for children under eight years old.

While there are 12 Islington schools within one mile of Highbury Quadrant that the council says will have space for all its pupils, parents have pointed out that several are religious schools or have small catchment areas that would effectively exclude children living on estates around Highbury Quadrant, thus significantly reducing the options.

Green Cllr Ernestas Jegorovas-Armstrong has also pointed out that the Highbury area used to have the highest demand for school places. Last year, its reception classes were the fullest in the borough. Now, two of its schools could be closed because they don’t have enough children.

What changed?

In the small print of the council’s proposal to shut Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s primaries this summer is a shake-up of the borough’s “pupil planning areas” – a term used by local authorities to manage demand for school places, based on things like birth rates and new housing.

Islington has been divided into the same five planning areas for more than a decade, but this year the council redrew those boundaries, moving the two at-risk schools from an area with a high demand for school places into one where there are far more places than children.

Cllr Jegorovas-Armstrong said: “Under the old planning areas, Highbury was one of the areas that had the fewest unfilled places. Suddenly the boundaries changed halfway through the academic year and parents do feel like the goal posts have been moved.”

In April 2024, schools in the old Highbury area, which included Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s, had an 8 per cent pupil vacancy rate – vacancies elsewhere ranged from 25 to 35 percent.

But both schools now fall into the new, larger North East planning area where there is an 18 per cent vacancy rate. A reasonable rate is deemed to be 10 per cent – meaning that in less than a year the area around Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s has moved from the green into the red in terms of demand for school places.

“It feels like the council is picking on the smallest and the most vulnerable,” Cllr Jegorovas-Armstrong said.

According to the Town Hall a school’s planning area plays no role in assessing that school’s sustainability.

The planning areas were redrawn to rebalance the number of schools in each area, follow­ing closures in recent years.

Islington’s children chief Cllr Michelline Safi-Ngongo said: “We recognise that travel distances are an important factor for parents, carers and pupils.

“There are currently 17 primary schools within a mile of Highbury Quadrant with available places – including five faith schools – ensuring all families have options available to them.”