La Sainte Union

WITH four more state schools at risk of closure due to a lack of pupils, the familiar question over the past few weeks, months and years has been: where are all the children?

Councillors were reminded this week that a lot of them are here – but are enrolled in private schools.

More than a third of school-age residents living in the borough are filling classrooms at independent fee-paying schools rather than council-run primaries and secondaries. That’s more than 8,000 children, and Camden’s officers say there is no sign of extra VAT bills on private schools – introduced by the Labour government – affecting enrolment.

The debate over the school places crisis has centred on the cost of living in north London and a lack of affordable housing for people wanting to start families.

La Sainte Union in Dartmouth Park, as well as the primary schools St Joseph’s, St Patrick’s and St Albans have all been put at risk of closure due to the low number of recent enrolments.

But Labour councillor Annabelle Williams warned a Town Hall cross-party scrutiny committee on Thursday that the take-up of private education was “glaringly obvious” in council reports and asked what was being done to encourage families to choose state-run options.

She said Camden should do work at primary school level to “talk to parents about why they are making those decisions to send their children private. Schools are embedded in our local communities, it’s part of our centre – I don’t want to see parents driving miles to Hampstead to send their children to school when they should be in the local area at our excellent schools.”

Cllr Williams added: “I think that’s a huge number of children and I’m really worried that we’ve got so many children going to private school – the second highest in London.”

Labour councillor Annabelle Williams

Campaigners trying to save affected schools from being shut are expected to demonstrate outside the Town Hall on Monday ahead of the first full council meeting since the risk of closures was announced.

Camden has already lost St Dominic’s and Carlton in Gospel Oak, and St Aloysius in Somers Town in recent years.

The shortage of children in schools has a direct knock-on effect on the funding they receive under the government’s per-pupil formula. Around 23 per cent of places at Camden’s secondary schools are currently unfilled.

But answering Cllr Williams’ question on the numbers of children who live in Camden and go to private schools, Vikram Hansrani, the Town Hall’s director of commissioning and inclusion, said: “We have engaged with organisations like Meet The Parents to try and understand how we can continue to strengthen our offer for state-funded schools. All parties, all stakeholders need to be engaged in those processes.

“I think we have had varying degrees of success, but I think it’s fair to say that the impact of things like the VAT hasn’t had, at this moment in time, a demonstrable impact on children moving from private schools to state education.”

Meet The Parents is a grassroots organisation in Camden which works to encourage parents to support their local school.

A consultation survey on school places is ongoing and council chiefs say no final decisions have been made.