Earlier closure for Clapham primary school has angry staff crying foul

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

Teachers at a Clapham primary school due to shut down are in a ‘lose-lose situation’ after the council pushed forward the closure date by a year, a staff member has claimed.

Lambeth council originally told staff at King’s Avenue School in Kings Avenue, that it planned to close the school in September 2026 and move existing pupils to nearby Glenbrook Primary School, in Clarence Crescent, Clapham Park.

However, when the final proposals were rubber-stamped by the council’s Labour cabinet in November, the closure date for King’s Avenue had been moved forward a year to September 2025.

Bisma Jones, a governor and staff member at the school, said the decision to shut King’s Avenue 12 months earlier had come as a ‘bombshell’ and left teachers frantically trying to find a new job.

She was one of over a dozen staff members to rally outside the school on April 2 and April 3, calling on the council to commit to no compulsory redundancies as part of Kings Avenue’s closure.

The 46-year-old said: “They [the council] dropped the bombshell on November 4 and then they washed their hands with us. We didn’t even get a whole year to find a new job. We are in a lose-lose situation.

“Even to date, we don’t know what’s happening. We’ve had no HR meetings, we’ve had no wellbeing officers… not one person or support has come forward and said ‘we’ll help you through this’. Now we are striking for no compulsory redundancies.”

The earlier 2025 closure date was stated in council cabinet papers published ahead of a crunch decision meeting last November. But Ms Jones said the first she and many staff members heard of the new date was when Liberal Democrat councillor Matthew Bryant raised it with the council’s then-director of education, Abrilli Phillip.

Ms Phillip, who is understood to have left the council in early January, told the meeting in November that the decision to bring the school’s closure forward a year was because it was ‘more cost-effective’. According to cabinet papers, shutting the school in 2025 will cost £290,634 less than waiting until 2026.

The council has described the closure of King’s Avenue and the transfer of existing pupils to Glenbrook Primary School as an ‘amalgamation’. However, according to Ms Jones, only around 20-25 pupils out of the 82 at the school are moving to Glenbrook.

She added: “The objective was to merge the two schools together and that’s not been met. We have classes with four children in year one and year two. It’s because parents needed some clarity, and they couldn’t just wait around.”

According to Ms Jones, parents have opted to send their children to other local primary schools such as Sudbourne, Bonneville, and Clapham Manor.

It is understood the council is examining if the Kings Avenue site can be used as a school for pupils with special education needs in the future, as there is currently a shortage of such places in Lambeth.

A Lambeth council spokesman said: “The time frame for merging the two schools is in line with that agreed in November and communicated to the school community. We know this is a very difficult time, but with the ongoing drop in pupil numbers at King’s Avenue, we have to take tough decisions.

“The council doesn’t want to close schools, but it must because there are not enough pupils to fill the classes.

“Sadly this will have an impact on staff at our schools, but we are doing all we can to support them through this really difficult challenge.”

Pictured top: Staff protesting outside King’s Avenue School (Picture: Bisma Jones)