Liberal Democrats are calling on the Conservative-led North Yorkshire Council to place a moratorium on school closures until the first county-wide Local Plan development blueprint is adopted in 2028.
Members of the 14-councillor political group have tabled a notice of motion for the next full meeting of the authority later this month to highlight “the loss of key facilities from our communities” across North Yorkshire.
The motion follows the council repeatedly launching consultations over the closure of village primary schools, saying Department of Education rules leave it with little option but to recommend they close their doors despite communities developing action plans to rescue them.
Last autumn, the authority’s children’s scrutiny committee heard the succession of rural school closures was “only likely to get worse” with a looming oversupply of places, despite attempts to prevent an increasing number of schools going into the red.
Andrew Smith, the Diocese of York’s director of education, issued the bleak situation facing many communities in North Yorkshire as councillors were told some 16 primary schools had closed in the past six years.
Some of the closed schools include Drax, Horton in Ribblesdale, Rathmell, Ingleby Arncliffe, Swainb, Ings, Burnt Yates, Arkengarthdale, Clapham, Whitby, Kell Bank, Weaverthorpe, Baldersby St James, Harrogate, Hovingham and Skelton.
Councillors heard financial pressures on the county’s smaller schools were rising, with the average school deficit soaring from £16,400 in 2015 to £57,900 last year year.
Meanwhile, the number of primary school age pupils was set to fall in every area of the county except the Selby area and Craven.
The proposal underlines how the closure of rural schools in North Yorkshire has many significant negative social impacts on residents, communities and children – an observation which has regularly been raised by some prominent Tory members of the authority.
The motion states:
“The loss of schools and other associated infrastructure leaves villages without the necessary services to support families now and into the future.”
Liberal democrat councillor for Amotherby and Ampleforth division Steve Mason said:
“The recent news about the potential closure of St Hildas in Ampleforth, following the closure of Hovingham school last year highlights the need for NYC to step in to protect these valued services for the future.
“In the past five years alone we have lost 11 primary schools in North Yorkshire and no doubt more will follow. Clearly something is broken.”
Councillor Andrew Murday, who represents Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale, said the council had a responsibility to support the county’s many rural communities.
He said:
“Primary schools are a vital component of those communities and without them the community gradually collapses. We need the council to rethink its policy otherwise there will be progressive depopulation. Only last month we saw the loss of Fountains Earth School at Lofthouse. It should not be allowed to continue.”
The council’s Conservative leadership have been approached to comment.
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Harrogate district school unable to find new teacher for five years
A Harrogate district school facing closure has found it impossible to recruit a single permanent teacher for five years, according to North Yorkshire Council.
The council has recommended consulting on whether to close Fountains Earth Church of England Primary School in Lofthouse, near Pateley Bridge, on March 31 next year.
Elected councillors will vote whether to accept the recommendation next week.
The council claims the decision is largely due to falling pupil numbers, and with no children remaining on the roll the decision appears a formality.
But villagers claim they have been let down by the council and the Upper Nidderdale Federation, which the school is part of, and say closure will rip the heart out of Lofthouse.
The federation also includes St Cuthbert’s in Pateley Bridge and Glasshouses Primary School. The three schools share one headteacher.
A report by council officers ahead of next week’s vote said “it has not been possible to recruit a permanent teacher” for the last five years.
It attributes this to the school’s remote location as well as difficulty finding someone capable of teaching a wide range of ages and abilities from reception pupils to year six.
The report adds:
“Staff retention has also proved difficult with a high turnover of staff over the last five years resulting in use of agency staff which comes with increased staffing costs.
“The school is just over six miles from Pateley Bridge at the top end of Nidderdale which, by virtue of the local road, can be a slow journey as part of a longer commute for staff.”
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The report added supply staff only need to give a day’s notice, which caused further disruption.
It said:
“Recruitment of the right people is a time-consuming activity which has required a substantial amount of the federation’s senior leadership team resource over the past few years.”
Rated ‘good’ at last Ofsted
Fountains Earth was rated ‘good’ at its most recent full Ofsted inspection in April 2017.
The school’s governing board recently approached the council to request consultation on a proposal to close the school after all pupils had transferred to other schools by the start of the current academic year in September.
Cllr Annabel Wilkinson, the council’s Conservative executive member for education, learning and skills, will decide whether to trigger a five-week consultation starting in November.
Cllr Wilkinson said:
“North Yorkshire maintains more small, rural schools than any other local authority in the country. Sadly, the reality is that many of our schools, particularly those in rural areas, are seeing pupil numbers reduce year-on-year.
“Fountains Earth Primary School is among the rural schools finding itself in a difficult position, particularly around pupil numbers and funding, and I will consider these issues carefully when deciding if a public consultation should proceed.”
Bleak future forecast for many small, local rural schools
The succession of rural primary school closures across England’s largest county are “only likely to get worse”, a meeting has heard.
Andrew Smith, the Diocese of York’s director of education, issued the bleak warning facing many communities in North Yorkshire as councillors were told some 16 primary schools had closed in the last six years.
The list includes five in the Harrogate district: Woodfield Community Primary School in Harrogate, Burnt Yates Church of England Primary School, Kell Bank Church of England Primary School near Masham, Baldersby St James Church of England Primary School and Skelton Newby Hall Church of England Primary School.
Woodfield Community Primary School closed last year.
The other 11 were at Drax, Horton in Ribblesdale, Rathmell, Ingleby Arncliffe, Swainb, Ings, Arkengarthdale, Clapham, Whitby, Weaverthorpe and Hovingham.
Mr Smith told a meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s children and families scrutiny committee the diocese was keenly aware of the vulnerability of many rural schools. Dozens of Church of England schools co-run by North Yorkshire Council have fewer than 100 pupils and many have declining pupil numbers.
Councillors heard financial pressures on the county’s smaller schools were rising, with the average school deficit soaring from £16,400 in 2015 to £57,900 this year. Also, the number of primary school age pupils was set to fall in every area of the county except the Selby and Craven areas.
The meeting heard, governors and headteachers were often forced to make cutbacks to balance the books. This led to decisions that could result in an ‘inadequate’ rating from Ofsted, which automatically triggers moves to convert schools into academies.
Mr Smith said:
“We have known for some time we are going to be facing an oversupply of places and therefore there needs to be a planned way of working to think what happens to schools going forward where we have got over-capacity.
“Over-capacity brings its own financial challenges and that begins a downward spiral with regards to finances.”
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He said as academies legally could not underpin their budgets with deficits as the council could, they were reluctant to take on smaller schools.
Mr Smith said:
“We are in a position where we have to have a closure process for schools because there is no other alternative.
“We are highly reactive in the system and don’t necessarily have a plan for it.
“I think it is only likely to get worse because where the financial projections are going it is likely we are going to face more school closures.
“It is a strategic, systemic problem in a fragmented system.”
Council officers then told the meeting Mr Smith had summed up the situation excellently.
They said the council was examining how it could encourage schools to work together to create “strength in numbers” to prevent the most vulnerable ones finding themselves without an academy sponsor.
Councillors urged the authority to give struggling schools more back office support.
After councillors also called on the authority to intervene earlier, such as when a school was seen to be making cutbacks on spending such as music lessons, officers said they were holding “a series of quite challenging discussions with governing boards over this autumn term where there are financial challenges”.
An officer told members:
“We are having those early discussions so governors are aware of what the risks are.”
In depth: Bleak future for Harrogate district rural schools?
Since the turn of the year, it has been announced that two primary schools in the Harrogate district will close.
Both schools — Kell Bank near Masham and Baldersby St James between Ripon and Thirsk — are in rural areas.
Kell Bank closed in summer and if Baldersby’s closure goes ahead as planned, it will be the first academy in North Yorkshire to shut.
Both decisions were attributed to low pupil numbers. But a closer look at the issue reveals a deeper problem in rural communities in our district.
Drop in pupil numbers
North Yorkshire is home to 356 state schools — of which 303 are primary, 43 are secondary and 10 are special schools.
Although most schools in the Harrogate district are in towns and cities, such as Ripon, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Pateley Bridge and Masham, some are in more remote parts.
Declining pupil numbers in these rural areas has led to questions about the ongoing viability of schools.
Kell Bank, which was run by North Yorkshire County Council, closed in August.
Pupil numbers at Kell Bank Primary School before its closure. Data: NYCC.
The school, which was celebrating 200 years of education at the time, had capacity to teach 50 pupils but just six on the register. Three year groups had no children in them.
The number of pupils had declined from 39 in 2014.
By comparison, nearby Masham Church of England School in Masham town centre had 121 pupils, some of which were out of its catchment area.
It’s a similar picture at Baldersby, which has only 22 pupils.
Hope Sentamu Learning Trust, the academy trust in charge, says numbers “show no prospect of improving for many years ahead” and the school should therefore close.
The figures for Baldersby St James since 2015. The 2021 number has since dropped to 22. Data: NYCC.
Pupil numbers at Baldersby have fluctuated and recovered to 46 in 2017 before declining again.
In both cases, the schools have been victims of changes to population demographics that have seen rural areas become less busy while more people live in towns and cities.
This raises difficult issues for families in rural areas thinking about where to educate their children.
‘A highly charged political issue’
A report by North Yorkshire County Council’s Rural Commission this year laid bare the problems facing rural schools.
According to the paper, eight schools have closed in the county over the past three years – most of which were in rural areas.
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The commission said the “continuing fall” in the rural population was the “fundamental challenge” facing small rural schools.
It said:
“While the number of elderly people living in the county continues to increase, the number of working-age families, with young children, continues to fall.
“This results in a significant surplus capacity in many of the small rural schools because there are simply not enough families with primary aged children living in rural communities.
“The cost of the rural housing market discourages young families from living in rural areas.”
The challenge in attracting younger families is compounded by the fact that parents are also thinking more carefully about where to send their children to school.
Department for Education guidance says a primary school aged child should be sent to a school no longer than 45 minutes away from home.
The rural commission report said parents were choosing not to send their children to a local school and instead opting for one further away “because it offers a better-quality education”.
It said:
“An expert on the subject noted that sometimes journey times are longer because children are going to schools other than their local one because of parental preference.”
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The sentiment was echoed by Jacqui Palmer, executive headteacher at Sharow Church of England Primary School.
She said:
“Over many years rural life has become different.
“In our village, there is no pub and the post office is only open on a morning.”
Ms Palmer added that it had become difficult for villages to attract younger families.
Impact on communities
The closure of rural schools runs deep in communities.
As noted by the rural commission, the decision to shut a village schools often prompts campaigns to save them.
This occurred in the Harrogate district when within days of the academy trust’s announcement, a group of parents and villagers set up the Save Baldersby St James Primary School campaign.
The group has set up a social media account to help the fight and called on Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to reconsider the decision.
For the group, the closure would see an end to a school which has served the community since 1850.
Sally Muir, a spokesperson for Save Baldersby St James Primary School, said in a statement:
“In an era where running costs are elevated above all other criteria, it is a shame that a school with both history and potential that has long served the community is now earmarked for closure.”
In response to the difficulties facing schools, the rural commission has called for the Department for Education to revise its national funding formula to support rural schools, in particular spare secondary schools.
It also believes that the formula needs to take into account “the quality of rural roads as well as distance”.
The commission has also backed a “rural stipend” for teachers salaries in order to encourage more teachers into rural schools, but also to bring more younger families into those areas.
But time will tell whether there is the will to act, or whether more cherished schools in remote parts of England’s largest county face uncertain futures.