Leopold Primary School, Brentfield Road
Falling school pupil numbers and subsequent school closures and amalgamations were a feature of my early years in teaching in the 1970s and the issue has returned post-Brexit as pupil numbers fall.
Camden has already been hit and there was a local warning when the Strathcona site closed. Now Brent Council is wrestling with managing pupil numbers and school provision. in the borough. A review of primary provision was promised last year and focused on Planning Area 4:
The above table shows how the actual admissions compared with the PAN (Planned Admissions Number). 30 is one form admitted at reception, 60 two forms and 90 three forms, 45 is a class and a half and results in either two small single age classes or mixed age classes.
The only two oversubscribed schools were Donnington (single form entry - one class per year) and St Joseph's a Roman Catholic school. There are parents who prefer a small school such as Donnington where vulnerable children feel less threatened than they would in a school with large numbers of pupils and a big site. Our Lady of Lourdes is also one form entry.
Single form entry schools are becoming much less common in London but this may change in time. Brentfield, Furness, John Keble, Newfield, St Mary's C of E and Stonebridge are all around or well below one form of entry. They tend to have higher per pupil costs than larger schools.
The two sites of Leopold Primary have a combined form of entry of 4 classes.
Brent Council explains the background to their proposal to close the Brentfield Road site of Leopold Primary in phases from September 2025. The site was previously the Brent Teachers Centre andPupil Referral Unit.
Leopold Primary School currently has capacity for 120 places in each year group with 60 on the school’s main site on Hawkshead Road and 60 on the Gwenneth Rickus site (Brentfield Road). Leopold Primary School achieves good outcomes for pupils across both sites and was rated by Ofsted as ‘Good’ in June 2022.
Leopold operates as a split-site school with one leadership team and staff who work across both the main school site on Hawkshead Road and the Gwenneth Rickus site.
On national offer day in 2023 for Reception places in 2023, 60 places were offered and there remained 60 spare places across the two school sites. As with other schools across the borough, the actual Reception cohort now on roll is higher due to late applications, which would have been diverted to other schools had Leopold’s capacity only been 60. Demand for Leopold Primary School has been falling since 2018 and the Gwenneth Rickus site operates as one form of entry in some year groups, including Reception and Year 1.
The Leopold Gwenneth Rickus site was opened in September 2013 as annexed provision in response to increasing demand for primary school places. The site was previously used by the borough as a school improvement centre, running courses for education professionals. Now that demand has reduced, there is no longer a need for this additional site to be retained as there are sufficient spare places on both the Leopold Primary School main site and in other local schools to accommodate future demand for primary provision in the area.
In January 2023, there were 628 pupils at Leopold Primary School compared to 767 in January 2019, with 282 pupils educated on the Gwenneth Rickus site.
The proposal is for the status of Leopold Primary School to return to that of prior to 2015 when the school operated with two forms of entry from one site only (Hawkshead Road). A phased closure of the Gwenneth Rickus site is recommended to avoid disruption to as many pupils and their families as possible. As the Hawkshead Road site has a central location within the planning area, it is anticipated that over time pupils from the Gwenneth Rickus site would move to the main Leopold Primary School site. Other local schools will be able to accommodate any pupils who wished to move school.
Parents of future Reception children would continue to have a range of schools to choose from. Only two schools in the area (Donnington Primary and St Joseph’s RC Primary School) were oversubscribed on national offer day for the September 2023 intake. There are several schools with spare capacity close to the Gwenneth Rickus site.
There were built-in problems with operating on two sites that are some distance apart including staff movement and travel time and the difficulty of shaping the two sites into one school with a shared ethos. Despite the difficulties the school has been very successful.
Many felt that it would have better if they operated as two separate schools but Government rules did not allow it. School expansion was allowed but not the opening of new community schools - any new school had to be an academy or free school.
The proposal is for a phased closure, as in the Strathcona case. The site would be used for other educational purposes so that it would be available for any recovery in pupil numbers. Several alternative uses are mentioned in the Cabinet paper but not the possibility of it being used by Islamia Primary School. There is likely be a reduction in staffing as the school shrinks.
Also included in the proposals is a reduction in the size of Mitchell Brook Primary so that it takes 60 pupils a year rather than 90. This proposal is supported by the school:
The proposed reduction of the Pupil Admisison Number at Mitchell Brook Primary School from 90 to 60 would help to reduce spare places in other schools in the planning area. Mitchell Brook Primary Schools is rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted (September 2021). It is anticipated that Mitchell Brook Primary School will remain a popular school. However, any children who are unable to secure a place at the school would be able to access places at other local schools in the immediate area.
The school is in support of a reduction of the school’s PAN and has raised concerns about the constraints of continuing to operate as three forms of entry due to the school’s confined site. Although forecasts indicate low demand in Planning Area 4 in the short and medium term, the spare building capacity created by reducing the school’s PAN could be brought back into use in the future at a time when demand rises again
The proposals would have to go through a consultation process. An indicative timeline is included in the paper.
