Westminster: A quarter of primary school places are empty, says council
September 9, 2024
Westminster: A quarter of primary school places are empty, says council
by BulkyAccident
14 comments
Westminster’s insane levels of NIMBYism have made it one of the only urban councils in England to have *lost* population over the past decade. It’s completely hollowed out. This is the result.
The people who can live in Westminster today can’t afford to now have kids. I went to primary school in Westminster a while ago now and it is so much more expensive to live here, not to meantion lots of people only live here part of the year.
for years we complained about class sizes being too big.. 25, 30, 35 kids per teacher.
Now we get a situation where class sizes are falling and we’re closing schools
Better merge some primary schools then. I don’t see the issue.
It’s fine for demographics to change. If people don’t want to raise families in city centres then get rid of city centre primary schools and build more where people do want to raise families. Not complicated or controversial.
Based on 30 per class? So that’s around 22-23 per class at the moment. Seems almost ideal to me. I was sometimes in classes with 25 and sometimes in classes with 30 students, and the difference was obvious in terms of the teacher being able to keep the students’ attention.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about completely filling classrooms based on a maximum limit of 30?
doesn’t help that WCC lets family size properties be converted into hotels at an astounding rate. even if one could face the affordability issue of housing and household costs it’s clear WCCs priorities aren’t families at least around our area – residential conversion to hotels and airbnb guts the community and consequently changes the nature of shops and services.
Cost of childcare in London vs cost of childcare outside is huge.
Westminster as a council area is vast and includes some more residential areas like Paddington, Kensal Town, Royal Oak and so on
Kick out the stingy nimby boomers and send them to the countryside somewhere and invite young families to take their place.
Apparently this is happening all over London. Several schools are closing in Hackney due to lack of pupils. London is so expensive people don’t want to start families here.
Given you need to be a gazillionaire to live there with a family, it’s no surprise the schools aren’t full.
When child care for two kids costs 2.5k per month in zone 4 can you really be surprised.
Because they’re probably all in private schools?
Westminster has one of the highest percentages of kids in private school in the country. If you can afford to live there obviously you can probably afford private school.
Is that’s the case address it Westminster . Streamline resources across less schools – and redirect the funding elsewhere . Property is so fucking expensive that re using ONE building could fund a decent chunk of salaries. I cannot see there being more small children born in most parts .
One of the issues not mentioned in the article is kids who start primary school but move out of central London before year 6 and aren’t replaced.
The primary school round the corner from us when we lived there went down from 4 full classes in reception to 2 classes with capacity by year 4 as the same group of kids aged up.
We did this too- it’s fine to start primary school in central London as your kids don’t need as much space and benefit from being able to waddle a short distance to the park etc. But as they get bigger, they want separate bedrooms (especially if they’re different sexes) and more space to run around- so you have to move out to give it to them.
It always happened, but covid meant people got out a bit earlier than they would otherwise.
14 comments
Westminster’s insane levels of NIMBYism have made it one of the only urban councils in England to have *lost* population over the past decade. It’s completely hollowed out. This is the result.
The people who can live in Westminster today can’t afford to now have kids. I went to primary school in Westminster a while ago now and it is so much more expensive to live here, not to meantion lots of people only live here part of the year.
for years we complained about class sizes being too big.. 25, 30, 35 kids per teacher.
Now we get a situation where class sizes are falling and we’re closing schools
Better merge some primary schools then. I don’t see the issue.
It’s fine for demographics to change. If people don’t want to raise families in city centres then get rid of city centre primary schools and build more where people do want to raise families. Not complicated or controversial.
Based on 30 per class? So that’s around 22-23 per class at the moment. Seems almost ideal to me. I was sometimes in classes with 25 and sometimes in classes with 30 students, and the difference was obvious in terms of the teacher being able to keep the students’ attention.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about completely filling classrooms based on a maximum limit of 30?
doesn’t help that WCC lets family size properties be converted into hotels at an astounding rate. even if one could face the affordability issue of housing and household costs it’s clear WCCs priorities aren’t families at least around our area – residential conversion to hotels and airbnb guts the community and consequently changes the nature of shops and services.
Cost of childcare in London vs cost of childcare outside is huge.
Westminster as a council area is vast and includes some more residential areas like Paddington, Kensal Town, Royal Oak and so on
Kick out the stingy nimby boomers and send them to the countryside somewhere and invite young families to take their place.
Apparently this is happening all over London.
Several schools are closing in Hackney due to lack of pupils.
London is so expensive people don’t want to start families here.
Given you need to be a gazillionaire to live there with a family, it’s no surprise the schools aren’t full.
When child care for two kids costs 2.5k per month in zone 4 can you really be surprised.
Because they’re probably all in private schools?
Westminster has one of the highest percentages of kids in private school in the country. If you can afford to live there obviously you can probably afford private school.
Is that’s the case address it Westminster . Streamline resources across less schools – and redirect the funding elsewhere . Property is so fucking expensive that re using ONE building could fund a decent chunk of salaries. I cannot see there being more small children born in most parts .
One of the issues not mentioned in the article is kids who start primary school but move out of central London before year 6 and aren’t replaced.
The primary school round the corner from us when we lived there went down from 4 full classes in reception to 2 classes with capacity by year 4 as the same group of kids aged up.
We did this too- it’s fine to start primary school in central London as your kids don’t need as much space and benefit from being able to waddle a short distance to the park etc. But as they get bigger, they want separate bedrooms (especially if they’re different sexes) and more space to run around- so you have to move out to give it to them.
It always happened, but covid meant people got out a bit earlier than they would otherwise.