Parent Paul Levy with Pooles Park former head Greg Crawford outside the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday (Thursday)

A PARENT has described how the garden at a Finsbury Park school should be forever preserved for the children of the ward – one of the poorest in the country – as Islington this week took the secretary of state for education to the High Court in legal wranglings over its future.

Paul Levy, speaking yesterday (Thursday) on behalf of the Parents Supporting Pooles Park Primary School, described the garden as a “jaw-dropping oasis” which made Pooles Park “the greenest in the borough”.

Watched from the public gallery by the school’s former headteacher Greg Crawford, Mr Levy warned Mr Justice Akhlaq Choudhury that Pooles Park faces being “razed to the ground” if the court accepts Islington’s premise that it is not financially viable as an academy.

Following a poor Ofsted report in 2022, Islington education bosses decided the school should close as the poorest performing school in the borough. Bosses have repeatedly claimed school closures are inevitable across the borough due to plummeting rolls and they would rather close an inadequate school than a Good or Outstanding one.

Mr Levy told the court the school should remain open because it offered pupils exceptional pastoral care run by Maggie Ryan, who he called an “angel”.

Describing the educational journey of his son, who is autistic and was nonverbal when he started at Pooles Park, he said he now “talks so much I sometimes tease him saying ‘why can’t you go back to when you couldn’t speak’.”

Pooles Park pupils

“If our school has failed,” he added, “it’s failing has been caring for our children rather than keeping its eye on the bullet points that Ofsted required. I don’t see that as a failure.”

Islington is asking the secretary of state for education, Gillian Keegan, to revoke Pooles Park’s academy licence. Earlier, education bosses argued the financial modelling by the Bridge Multi Academy Trust (MAT), the trust which has taken on the school, was flawed.

Joanne Clements KC, for Islington, claimed it was “obvious there were a number of key things the secretary of state needed to know in order to answer the question of whether the school was viable”, such as the fact there are just nine children on roll for a reception place in September.

She added: “This council is facing a crisis of surplus places, and it’s not us alone, it’s a London-wide issue.

“Closing schools is not a position any local authority wants to be in. It’s in this position because of the falling birth rate, the impact of Brexit and families leaving.

“The education of all children in the borough is going to suffer if Pooles Park stays open as an academy.”

Since the academisation of Pooles Park last year, Islington has announced it is closing nearby Montem Primary School at the end of this academic year.

Privately, industry insiders warn up to five schools may have to shut to close the widening gap between school places on offer and bottoms on seats in the classroom.

Alan Bates KC, counsel for Ms Keegan, argued she rejected the council’s request to quash the academy order after her regional director for London described the academisation as “a unique opportunity to provide outstanding provision for Special Educational Needs children that should be allowed to be tested”.

Mr Bates argued that all schools face uncertainty around future numbers on roll and that the Bridge should be given the opportunity to breathe new life into Pooles Park.

Mr Justice Choudhury will return his verdict in the coming weeks.