How to save a town or village school

(Hint: it isn’t all about PTA quizzes and raffles)

Hundreds of schools are under threat of closure in the next five years and that’s nothing to do with cuts or poor teacher recruitment. Instead, it is driven by the decline in the birth rate which has been consistent since the post-millennium mini boom. The recent Education Policy Institute report on this is called So Long, London because the effect of falling school rolls is particularly acute in the capital – but the report also sounds the school alarm bell for small towns and villages (https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/so-long-london-an-analysis-of-london-primary-pupil-movements/).

I’m a councillor in a rural market town. We have been lucky that for decades now we have had all-party support for sensible and managed growth in the number of homes – family homes – keeping our community vibrant. However a combination of holiday lets, second homes and resistant communities opposing new building leaves many rural towns and villages shorn of essential services.

Homes for young people to stay living in the rural communities they grew up in are in short supply. When older residents think about development in a village or small town, they often think first about loss of views or green fields, and only subsequently about how not planning well can lead to the loss of local amenities such as schools, which make their community thrive. However, when planned well, new housing and mixed-use developments can revitalise local communities by supporting schools, shops, pubs, and other essential services.

What’s more, new developments often bring investment – through Section 106 or Community Infrastructure Levy or similar – to improve and update smaller schools and make them more attractive to parents. New homes can also provide affordable and attractive places for teachers and other key workers to live.

When councillors and communities are thinking about new local plans, neighbourhood plans, or developments in their ward, it is worth considering whether children and the community will benefit by supporting their local school at a time when school rolls are falling. Otherwise, children in rural areas may be travelling elsewhere to go to school, and the vital community hub which a village school represents may be lost forever.