Carly Slingsby’s pupils are disappearing — and fast. At the start of the year, there were 24 children in her Year 3 class. After the Easter holidays, there were 15. Now, there are just two. In other year groups, there are no children at all.
Class sizes have become so small that teachers have been merging class and even year groups to stop children from feeling “too lonely”, Slingsby explains. The teacher has been fighting for months to try to keep St Dominic’s Catholic Primary School in Hackney open. But in April, Hackney Council decided to close her school along with three others at the end of the academic year. Since the decision, children have been leaving the school at an even faster rate. There are now no children in Year 5 at all — meanwhile, there is just one child in reception and four in the school’s nursery.
