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Our school spends less, and achieves more,
supporting a community who face significant disadvantages.
Yet Lambeth are choosing to keep other school sites open.
Just 1% of our pupils are White British. Saint John the Divine has a high proportion of pupils who would be eligible to receive free school meals, and who speak English as a second language and are not yet proficient in English. More than the Lambeth average school, and far more than the national average. Many of our children live on the Brandon estate – shockingly dubbed ‘the deadliest estate in Britain’ by the national press in 2018 after a spate of gang violence. Headlines in 2019 called it an ‘estate of broken promises‘.
We work hard to support our students – OFSTED notes how our pupils feel safe and included, and how school leaders are ‘acutely aware of challenges in the local community and respond well to them. Staff teach pupils how to manage some of the risks they might face’. Lambeth Council claim they want children to be ‘safe at home, school and in public spaces’. This is what our school currently helps them to be.
Despite these challenges, our students achieve educational outcomes are well above the Lambeth and national averages. Results for Black African pupils at the school are particularly good.
Our school has a balanced budget and no deficit, unlike many school sites that Lambeth plan to leave open. The school rolls- the number of children attending – are increasing, bucking the Lambeth trend of decline. Even with our current rolls, our calculations using figures which are already available, show our school could continue until at least 26-27 (and likely much longer) with both an in-year and cumulative surplus – and at no extra cost to Lambeth Council. In contrast, our workings show that the proposed amalgamated school would have a cumulative deficit by 2026-27 of over £1Million. On top of this there will be a further cost to Lambeth Council of £500k to actually merge the schools. It’s madness.
Despite all this, Lambeth have refused to listen to our parents, our pupils and our community’s response to their initial consultation.
A more detailed breakdown of all the statistics can be found below, together with links to source documents, and comparisons to one of the schools Lambeth has decided to recently call off their proposed amalgamation of, whose academic outcomes are significantly below the Lambeth average, massively below our academic achievements, despite having a far higher proportion of fluent English speakers.
In an interview with the BBC our Chair of Governors called the decision to close our school, rather than many of the other options, ‘socially unjust’. Lambeth have decided to leave one proposed merger at St Saviours, due to ‘significant feedback’ from the St Saviour’s community’ despite their % of pupils achieving the expected standard being below the Lambeth average. Are black pupils being disproportionally disadvantaged by Lambeth’s proposals? See the figures below for yourself.
Our children
St John the Divine Primary School has 10% higher Free School Meals than the average Lambeth Primary School, and almost double the national average % of Free School Meals.
The school has over 2/3 of pupils with English as an additional language – this is over 20% more than the Lambeth average.
A large number of our pupils speak English as a second or additional language, and many of them are working towards becoming proficient in English.
18% of our pupils have Special Educational Needs.
| St John the Divine | Lambeth average | National average | |
| Race / Ethnicity | |||
| Black African | 48% | 20% | |
| Black Caribbean | 12% | 11% | |
| White British | 1% | 18% | |
| Eligible for Free School Meals | 46.1% | 36% | 24.3% |
| English as an Additional Language | 68% | 45% | |
| English as an Additional Language – not proficient | 67% | 24.6% |
The data above for St John the Divine is for January 2024 from the Proposal Document (https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-09/Full%20Proposal%20Document%20St%20John%20The%20Divine%20CofE%20Primary%20%26%20Christ%20Christ%20SW9_0.pdf) The Data for Lambeth / National is from the Lambeth Education Statistics Pack for the most recent period available (https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-07/Education_Statistics_2023-24.pdf)
Meanwhile, St Saviours, a school originally proposed for a merger by Lambeth, is now not going to be touched due to ‘significant feedback’ from their community. Their % of pupils reaching the expected standard is below the Lambeth average (ours is above). And how does their intake of pupils compare?
- St Saviour’s % of pupils on Free School Meals is 22% (lower than both the National and Lambeth averages). Ours is 46%.
- St Saviour’s % of pupils with English as an Additional Language is 36.5% (lower than the Lambeth average of 45%). This is just above half of St John the Divine’s numbers of 68%.
- Of those 36.5% at their school for whom English is an additional language, only 5.3% are not fluent – so they are likely bilingual families, rather than non-English speaking families. In contrast, we have 67% of pupils who are not proficient in English, who we work incredibly hard to support, and who go on to excellent academic outcomes – see below for further details of our pupils outcomes.
Our educational outcomes
We perform significantly above the Lambeth average and the national average in % of students achieving the expected standard at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Results for black african pupils at our school are particularly good. Statistics are below.
Key Stage 1 (7 Year Olds):
We are better than both Lambeth and the national average in terms of meeting the expected standard:
% at Expected Standard or above
| Reading | Writing | Maths | Average | |
| St John Divine | 88% | 82% | 76% | 82% |
| Lambeth | 70% | 63% | 72% | 68% |
| National | 68% | 60% | 70% | 66% |
Our Black African children perform especially well compared to Lambeth Key Stage 1 averages:
Reading 89% versus the 69% Lambeth average
Writing 78% versus the 62% Lambeth average
Maths 78% versus the 68% Lambeth average
Key Stage 2 (11 Year Olds):
Again, we are better than both Lambeth and National at both Expected and Higher standard:
| % of pupils at expected standard | % of pupils at higher standard | Average scaled score (Reading) | Average scaled score (Maths) | |
| St John Divine | 73% | 18% | 108 | 107 |
| Lambeth | 64% | 10% | 106 | 106 |
| National | 60% | 8% | 105 | 105 |
Education Outcome Data is 2023 (and is from https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-07/Education_Statistics_2023-24.pdf )
How does this compare to St Saviours, whose closure has recently been cancelled, and whose intake is less than half our % of children on free school meals, and who have only 5% not fluent in English versus our 67%?
We are better than both Lambeth and the National average in terms of meeting the expected standard at Key Stage 1:
% at Expected Standard or above
| Reading | Writing | Maths | Average | |
| St John Divine (us) | 88% | 82% | 76% | 82% |
| St Saviours | 58% | 46% | 54% | 53% |
| Lambeth | 70% | 63% | 72% | 68% |
| National | 68% | 60% | 70% | 66% |
Again, we are better than both Lambeth and National at both Expected and Higher standard at Key Stage 2 (11 years old):
| % of pupils at expected standard | % of pupils at higher standard | Average scaled score (Reading) | Average scaled score (Maths) | |
| St John Divine (us) | 73% | 18% | 108 | 107 |
| St Saviours | 54% | 15% | 104 | 104 |
| Lambeth | 64% | 10% | 106 | 106 |
| National | 60% | 8% | 105 | 105 |
Our financials
The proposal states that the ongoing running cost per pupil (assuming a school is operating at capacity) for St John the Divine is £248 per pupil per year – £82 per pupil per year below the £330 stated for the Christ Church SW9 site, the school it is proposed our pupils move into.
Even in an amalgamation scenario, we cannot understand why are Lambeth insisting that the merger take place on the Christ Church site, rather than the St John the Divine site. Both sites have the same total capacity and so assuming both schools are at capacity, utilising the more expensive site to run is an additional cost of over £17,000 every single year – enough to pay for an additional classroom assistant supporting better outcomes for children.
The Chair of our Board of Governors’ Finance Committee has written to Lambeth Council demonstrating many of the flaws in their figures. The financial assumptions behind the proposed merger are invalid. Instead of the merger being financially viable, the proposed amalgamated school will have a cumulative deficit by 2026-27 of over £1Million. On top of this there will be a further cost to Lambeth Council of £500k to merge the two schools.
Meanwhile, using updated figures which are already available, St John the Divine could
continue in its current situation until at least 26-27 (and likely much longer) with both an in-year and cumulative surplus – and at no extra cost to Lambeth Council. The full letter complete with workings can be found here.
Our future
Current (as at 12th September) Pupil numbers for SJDK are 128 – 7% higher than that listed in the proposal document which uses data from January (over 6 months ago); and the Reception numbers are currently 40% higher than that listed in the proposal document.
Our pupil numbers are currently increasing – against the trend of Lambeth or other schools and despite the disruption caused by Lambeth.
The proposal talks of 52.4% decline in Reception numbers over 3 years at St John the Divine – but if you were to update this to the current figures then it would be a reduction of just 7%[1]
As stated above, we believe St John the Divine could continue in its current situation until at least 26-27 (and likely much longer) with both an in-year and cumulative surplus – and at no extra cost to Lambeth Council.
Why is Lambeth Council looking to close our school site?
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& saying you do not support the proposals
[1] Lambeth use Reception 23/24 vs Reception 21/22 as a marker of decline. St John the Divine Reception numbers were 18 in 20/21; 21 in 21/22; 15 in 22/23; 10 in 23/24; 14 in 24/25.
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