Now schools closure battle could go to court

Parents planning legal action over decision to shut two primaries

Friday, 2nd May — By Daisy Clague

Highbury Quadrant and St Jude and St Paul’s

Parents, pupils and teachers outside the Houses of Parliament

PARENTS are planning legal action against Islington Council following the decision to close two primary schools.

Highbury Quadrant and St Jude & St Paul’s were marked for closure by Islington’s Labour cabinet last week following months of uncertainty and protest.

But far from a neat conclusion to the council’s plans, campaigners intend to dispute the verdict in the courts.

Highbury Quadrant parent Alicia Perez told the Tribune: “We are confident about going through with a judicial review. There are lawyers interested in representing us – the problem now is funding the process.”

Mother at St Jude and St Paul’s Andri Andreou similarly said parents had no intention of allowing the school to close and were exploring other “options”, including becoming an academy – a process that is already under way.

She said: “We believe our school is going to stay open – so much so that I have accepted my child’s reception place there for next year, all our parents have done that.”

She added that only three children have left the school since the closure notice was served in October 2024, with no additional departures since the closure was confirmed last week.

But developments since Wednesday, when the council blocked a rare request by opposition councillors to formally scrutinise the closure of Highbury Quadrant, may have shaken parents’ convictions.

Green and Independent councillors “called in” the council’s closure decision – a process that allows the opposition to debate major council decisions and encourage them to be reconsidered.

Highbury Quadrant’s Ms Perez said: “This is not democratic whatsoever.

“The council made up their mind from the beginning, no matter what we did.

“Their report is full of inconsis­tencies. It’s like building a house – if they had used strong bricks they wouldn’t care if people came and kicked the wall. But they built it out of thin paper so they don’t want anyone even touching it because even a little sneeze could make it fall down.”

Opposition leader Green councillor Benali Hamdache said the move to reject the call-in was “unprecedented territory” for the council.

“Earlier this year, for the first time in a decade, we called in the closure of Montem School,” he said.

“I’m finding it hard to understand why that call-in was successful and this call-in was rejected.

“It feels like they have moved the goalposts and that is incredibly disappointing, because this was a big decision and parents deserve the full scrutiny of it.

“For a long time, Labour has dominated the council so strongly with the one-party state that we have not even had enough opposition councillors to call something in, so I think it’s an uncertain time for council democracy.”

Opposition councillors cannot appeal the council’s decision to reject the call-in, but they warned that closing two schools near the Hackney border risked driving students out of Islington.

Independent councillor Phil Graham told the Tribune that Islington “…are going to lose not just the pupils but the money that comes from central government for each pupil – they’re losing that to Hackney as well”.

Councils receive around £6,000 per pupil from central government to fund schools, so falling rolls – due to lower birth rate, high living costs, and a lack of affordable housing – mean shrinking school budgets.

But if closing schools is a cost-cutting exercise, students moving to schools in Hackney is something of an own goal, since they take their funding with them.

Cllr Graham added: “The problem is the finances aren’t coming down from central government. I know there are a lot of people in the Labour group who are very uncomfortable with closing schools. I’m getting contacted by Labour group members asking me to speak up.

“But they have seen what happens if you speak out against anything the party is doing – you basically get crucified. So it is very much ‘do as you’re told’, especially when people are looking to be reselected for their seats next year. They don’t want to dirty their bibs.”

Other recent school closures in Islington include Blessed Sacrament, closed last summer, and mergers between Vittoria and Copenhagen primaries in 2023 and Montem and Duncombe in 2024.

A Finsbury Park primary, Pooles Park, was spared from closure in a High Court battle last year and is now an academy, despite Islington Council’s efforts to close it down.

Council leader Una O’Halloran said in a state­ment: “No one goes into politics to close much-loved primary schools. These are decisions that have been taken after a huge amount of consideration and are choices that I believe are best for our borough. Across London, schools are facing challenges. Pupil numbers are falling, and budgets are being squeezed. We’re not exempt from that here in Islington.

“While we’d have loved to have kept both schools open, the sad reality is that St Jude & St Paul’s has the lowest pupil numbers of any of our primary schools, while Highbury Quadrant has a significant vacancy rate.

“Closure is always an absolute last resort.”

Of the call-in decision, a council spokesperson said: “An application for call-in was received by the deadline and given full consideration by the council’s deputy monitoring officer. On this occasion the criteria for call-in, as set out in the constitution, were not met and the application was refused.”

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