Parents in fight to save primary school threatened with closure
ASCHOOL which originally opened 150 years ago has been threatened with closure by Bristol City Council due to the small number of children enrolled at the school.
St Barnabas Primary School on Albany Road in Montpelier is one of the few remaining local authority run schools in the area after several new Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) have been built nearby.
Although the school has capacity for more than 200 pupils, there are currently only around 70.
The potential closure has left parents and pupils shocked and disappointed, especially after it won a national Covid response award and was on track for an improved Ofsted result after coming under new leadership recently.
Parents have banded together to try and save it by setting up an online petition and campaigning for the school at the recent fireworks display at the Star and Garter pub in Montpelier. One mum of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder said she was “incredibly anxious” about the prospect of having to send her son to a different school after he settled in so well at St Barnabas.
Lottie Cronk said: “We looked at around 10 different schools and we felt really confident that St Barnabas could meet his needs. They have a really amazing SEND ethos and a really inclusive environment and we felt confident that he would be able to stay there throughout his whole primary education.
“In his reception class there are only 13 children, which is a really lovely number of children and it makes a huge difference to how the pupils and the teachers interact. He gets a lot of one-to-one support.
“We can’t believe it’s closing because we felt that we’d absolutely landed on our feet with this school. It hasn’t got the best reputation and a lot of parents don’t consider it because of its Ofsted, whereas once you actually get there you can see how happy the children are and how well they’re looked after in a really holistic way.
“I feel incredibly anxious because most of the local options are full, or are not schools that are very well set up for children with SEND and sensory processing needs.
“The outdoor space at St Barnabas is literally like an oasis in the centre of Bristol and for an autistic child who just sometimes needs space it’s marvellous.
“I know some SEND kids there who are not going to cope in a class of 30, so then they’re going to have to transition to a specialist provision,
❝We can’t believe it’s closing – we felt we’d landed on our feet with this school
Lottie Cronk, parent
which is extraordinarily expensive. All these SEND kids are happy there and they’re thriving.”
The small school has a large outdoor space with a multi games area, a small woodland and an area where children can grow their own vegetables.
During the pandemic, parents said that every single child was provided with a laptop and the school won a national award as a result.
Gemma Summers, whose child is in Year 5, said the school has a focus on the child’s wellbeing above results. She worries about her child, who lives in Easton, losing her friends and having to go to a school where she won’t know anyone. Gemma said: “They’re trying to close it down because there are so few pupils but they are looked after so much better than in a bigger school. All the teachers know every child really well. In some schools, there are more kids in one year than there are in the whole school, which is terrifying.”
Bristol City Council was approached for comment.