A Barrow primary school is likely to close due to concerns its financial situation was creating an unsustainable workload for staff.
Members of Westmorland and Furness Council’s Furness locality board will discuss a consultation about the closure of North Walney Primary and Nursery School from August 31 2024 at a meeting next week.
The report prepared for the meeting said: “Westmorland and Furness Council is concerned about the increasing pressure upon both the school’s leadership and staff to continue to provide a quality educational offer given the decline in the number of pupils at the school and the resulting impact on the school’s financial position.
“Given this, the council considers that it has a responsibility to all members of the North Walney school community to formally consult on the school’s future sustainability.”
Numbers at the primary school have dropped from 84 in 2019/2020 to 27 as of September 2023 and there was a significant number of surplus places in the Walney Island area, the report said.
School budgets are directly linked to the number of children at a school so when numbers decrease there is less money available to support teaching and this made it increasingly challenging to provide a broad and balanced quality educational offer, it added.
The report said: “The local authority is concerned that the school’s current financial position is increasing the workload on school staff to levels that the council believes is reaching an unsustainable level.
“This will inevitably impact on teaching standards and would likely give a reduced rating under the current Ofsted inspection framework.
“The local authority is concerned that staffing instability and funding have also hampered development of leadership at subject level and impacted on the professional development, workload and well-being of staff.”
A public consultation about the closure proposal will end on December 12 and a report will be presented to members of the council’s cabinet in January for a decision as to whether or not to proceed to the next stage of the statutory school organisation process.
If the council’s cabinet decide to proceed to the next stage of the statutory process the local authority will be required to formally publish a statutory notice setting out the proposal to close the school.
This will allow all stakeholders a further four weeks to make representations about the proposal.
Following the completion of the four-week statutory representation period a report will be submitted to the cabinet in March 2024 for a final decision as to whether the school should close in August.
Members of the Furness locality board will discuss the closure proposal on Tuesday at Barrow Town Hall.
