Are we facing a schools' crisis?

0:03Hello and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. I'm Julie Banks. If you're new here, don't forget to hit follow and leave a review. Coming up, Forrest, Lime or Boris? So many people like these bikes because they're easy to ride and you don't break out in a sweat. They're not hard work. So you can whiz around town and go most places you'd want to within 30 minutes. With around 50 ,000 hire bikes available across the capital, The London Standards City Hall and Transport editor Ross Lydell has been out testing the options and joins us with his review.

0:46But first, is there a looming schools crisis across the capital? Hackney Council has agreed plans to close four schools in the borough at the end of the school year and more boroughs look to be following suit, including neighbouring Islington, where parents are anxiously awaiting an update on the potential closure of a further two primary schools. It's caused a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, sleepless nights. To just go around closing schools is a short-sighted vision and I think that the government and the local authorities need to be doing more to protect these small schools. Rosie Turvey speaking there who has concerns about her own children's school in Islington.

1:28Teachers have also been reacting to the latest news, including London born and bred Carly Slingsby, who's been teaching at St Dominic's Catholic Primary School in Hackney for the past seven years. I have never seen so many of my colleagues in tears. You'll start talking about the children, you'll start talking about what you're doing next term, and you just suddenly start crying because it hits that that's the last term, that's it. This school will cease to exist. Well, the London Standards' Jacob Phillips has been reporting on the story and is with us now. Jacob, Hackney saw the closure of four schools last year and now four more seem to be set to go.

2:05What reasons have the council given for taking this decision? The council's given a range of reasons from the housing crisis, the cost of living, to Brexit, just to the changing nature of London is a beast. But the reason this seems to be happening really does seem to be housing. Hackney seems to be losing families very quickly. A lot of people are moving out of the city or are moving further afield and sort of further out of London into the outer boroughs into places like Wolvenstow and Wolven Forest or Enfield or Redbridge. And it seems to be a situation being replicated in other areas as well.

2:39I mentioned Islington, the top of this piece, and also a report today that Westminster Council is looking to merge some of its schools as well. So, you know, what impact is this having on the local communities? Yes, that's right. This is definitely a London-wide issue. It's also probably a national issue. There were reports today also that this is a problem, particularly in the North East. But what seems to be happening across the city, particularly in the inner London boroughs, is that there have been huge, huge drops in pupils. You know, we're seeing situations where schools now, they're half full, some of them are less than half full.

3:11Headteachers have previously told me how schools have sort of become like ghost towns. And it's having a wide ranging effect on communities from the direct impact on parents, you know, having to find other school places, having to send their children to schools much further away or not necessarily their first choice school, all the way through to the changing nature of London as a city and its demographic. You know, we're now, it seems like London could be becoming a city which is far less friendly for children or for young families just because of how costly it is to live in the city and on top of that you know you have issues where you just have the laughter of children being removed from the street which I think for communities is is really difficult it's sad to think that that aspect of London life might be getting harder I mean for me personally as someone who grew up in the city it's it's interesting to see your own upbringing sort of under threat a little bit in certain London boroughs you know those experiences that you have as a child when you can you had all of these amazing museums and parks on your doorstep are no longer as easy to get to for people.

4:13And also, obviously, the staff in these schools are being affected by this. You've been chatting to the teachers who've been affected. What kind of reaction have you been getting from them? Teachers at Hackney schools have told me they're in mourning. I spoke to one teacher previously who taught at one of the schools for over 20 years, who didn't want to be interviewed afterwards just because it was so heartbreaking. They've put on a real battle and tried really hard for the last few months to fight the same across the the border as it were in Islington but yeah teachers are in left in a really difficult position many facing redundancy one teacher was also telling us at the standards that class sizes have really dropped off over Easter as you know parents are sort of scrambling to get ahead of the game and move to different schools they might not necessarily be the school they want and and in one of the uh the Hackney schools which is closing they now have just four children in one of the classes so you know these schools are already half empty and now this decision's been made or in the build-up to this decision parents are fleeing and I think that's incredibly hard for teachers there's not that opportunity to say goodbye it's got to be pretty bleak getting into work on top of the personal issues that they'll be facing trying to get a job so it's pretty grim you know speaking to teachers at the moment who are some who are still on strike you know they are continuing to campaign because they're worried that this might happen again.

5:32As you said earlier, this is something that happened last year in Hackney. Staff and parents have accused the council of being quite aggressive in how quickly it closes schools compared to other London boroughs. And, you know, they're claiming that there's nothing to say this won't happen again. This is an ongoing problem where housing prices go up in London. Cost of living is not getting particularly easier for anyone. And there's no guarantee, it would seem, that this couldn't happen in another Hackney school. There are also situations that arise where funnily enough you know people have moved from a school last year into one of these schools which have now closed a year later so it feels like parents are sort of having to jump from step to step and there's a lot of disruption for the children as well.

6:13Yeah and quite young children because we're talking about primary schools here as well so it's a key stage for them so the disruption I'm sure is very difficult for them. What kind of campaigning is going on? Well there's been a variety of sort of efforts to stop this there's been direct direct messages sort of said to, you know, things sent into the council. Islington parents will be speaking at the meeting tonight to put forward their case. The Hackney parents didn't seem to be able to do say the other night, but I think that might be down to the sort of logistical way council meetings work.

6:43There's been plenty of strike action and support from local MPs. You know, the Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn has been involved. Mayor Kelly across the border in Hackney South has also been involved. We've seen strikes on top of open buses in Islington. We've seen marches all the way through to Westminster and in Parliament Square. There's been plenty of action and, yeah, wide region. Ages as well on these protests. You mentioned, you know, very young children involved and have become sort of, yeah, some of the youngest activists in the country, I suppose, by campaigning for their schools to remain open, all the way to, yeah, teachers who've been there for a very, very long time.

7:17I mean, you alluded to it earlier, Jacob, but, you know, is this all pointing towards a sort of a wider crisis for London schools and young families in the capital, do you think? personally I think definitely it's it really does seem like we're we could be approaching a crisis point we're doing more research at the standard and having a look at the moment you know I can see at least 20 schools which are in similar positions to the four in Hackney this year I don't remember it ever being quite so many and yeah as I've sort of half mentioned before there's no reason why this the for the problems being put forwards it doesn't seem like there's been a solution in the last year.

7:52And therefore, you know, you could see this problem extending and actually maybe becoming a much bigger issue. At the moment, the school roles are hit hardest in the lowest age groups. So reception classes tend to be the most empty. But there are now concerns that as kids get older, that this lower birth rate and this exodus from London could move up into the secondary schools, it could put secondary schools at risk, kids tend to travel further. And when I've spoken to teachers and experts, they've said that they think the secondary schools would be safer in general than sort of smaller primary schools.

8:22But yeah, there's no reason why this couldn't extend if no action is taken.

8:28Let's go to a break. Coming up, the London Standards City Hall and Transport Editor, Ross Lydell, has been testing the city's e-bike offerings. Which comes out on top? Find out in just a moment.

8:49Welcome back. Getting around London on e-bikes has grown in popularity in recent years, with almost half of young Londoners now using a line bike at least once a week. But what are the pros and cons of the various bikes on offer? Well, luckily, the London Standards City Hall and Transport editor Ross Lydell is a keen cyclist and has been out and about testing three of the most popular e-bikes and is with us now to share his findings. So Ross, shall we start with the line bikes as they seem to be so popular? What did you make of those? Line bikes are everywhere. Now, prior to this little sort of road test that we did, I thought line bikes were a bit of a nuisance because they blocked pavements.

9:31And I was very loyal to the Boris bike, the TFL scheme. But actually, hopping on board a line bike was a bit of a transformative experience. I thought the bikes were easy to hire, fun to ride and generally sort of an all round good thing and an asset to London rather than a sort of scourge. Because many pedestrians don't like them, but for those able to ride them, I would say give them a go. I found them a really pleasant experience and a really great form of transport in terms of how to get around central London. You've mentioned the Boris bikes, of course, one of Boris Johnson's legacies from his time as mayor of London.

10:10Their current sponsor would probably be first to call them by their official name, Santander Cycles. So what were the pros and cons that you found to using those? Well, I remember going on one of the best press trips ever back in 2010 when TfL took the Evening Standard and the Times over to Canada to see these Boris bikes being built. And they were based on the Bixi bike, which is used in Montreal. all. So higher bikes came to London under Boris's mayoralty, hence the name Boris Bikes. My wife actually claims credit for naming them because she first came up with the idea of calling them Boris's Bikes and then a week or so later the Times had used this phrase Boris Bikes and then it rather stuck.

10:53But back in 2010 these bikes really revolutionised thinking because until then if you wanted to ride a bike in London you had essentially to bring your own bike but this meant if you're a visitor to London or if you found yourself in central London without a bike you could easily hire a bike and go from docking station A to docking station B and there are around 800 docking stations. I've really been quite loyal to these bikes over the years always chosen them first over their sort of upstart rivals but the problem has come that not everybody has agreed with me and many more people prefer to use the line bikes or the forest bikes than the Boris bikes now.

11:32Why is that? Well, the main reason is that the line bikes and the forest bikes are e-bikes, whereas only 2 ,000 of the 12 ,000 Boris bikes are e-bikes. The rest are conventional pedal bikes, they're heavy bikes, and you need a bit of energy to cycle them. They're not the easiest bikes to ride. You know, you've got to have your sort of leg strength, not quite like Chris Hoy, but it would help if you were as strong as Chris Hoy to ride a Boris bike. Finally then, the forest bikes, which you've mentioned there, how did they match up to the other two? So forest bikes are the sort of newest entrants in this race.

12:06They sort of market themselves as this sort of eco-alternative and also the sort of less sort of corporate of the e-bikes. The forest bikes were nice to ride. They were probably the heaviest of the three. A nice saddle, but a slightly unusual basket at the front. The reason I say it's unusual is that the basket didn't seem to move. If you would turn the corner, your front wheel would turn, but the basket would keep pointing in the direction you were initially riding at. So it felt kind of odd. It was probably the biggest of the three. Not unpleasant, but we had various hassles hiring it. And also with the alarm going off when we stopped and started, I didn't like the idea of stopping for too long.

12:46We then essentially locked its own brakes and it seemed to think it was being stolen when we tried to recommence the ride. Not ideal, is it? In terms of accessibility then, sort of in general for hiring bikes across London, obviously competition in some ways is good. But if you're a visitor to London and you're not familiar with all the various different brands, do you think that then becomes confusing that there's too much choice? And how do you go about finding the best bike for the area that you're in and travelling to? This is where line bike has a huge advantage because many visitors to London, especially international visitors, may already know about line bikes in their own home city.

13:23Lime bikes are essentially an American company, but they're available in many cities across the world. So the system to hire them will be the same. The real challenge with the Boris bike is that if you want to try and get an electric Boris bike, rather than just the conventional pedal powered Boris bike, it's really hard to hire. We found real difficulties using the app, which is necessary to hire the eBoris bike. The Forest Bike was relatively simple to hire, but harder to find because there are fewer of these than there are Line Bikes. So in terms of accessibility, Line were the easiest to hire, the easiest to find and potentially the easiest to ride as well.

14:04Do you think we're likely to see a continued growth in the use of e-bikes across the capital? I think we are. I think this is very much the way London likes to roll. So many people like these bikes because they're easy to ride and you don't break out in a sweat. They're not hard work. So you can whiz around town and go most places you'd want to within 30 minutes for a pretty modest fee, quite often akin to the cost of a tube journey and probably a lot more pleasant as well. So, so many people use these bikes now, especially younger Londoners. There's something like 60 million trips a year on line bikes.

14:41It's quite extraordinary how many people are using these bikes. The real challenge is that the growth and popularity of line bikes and of the forest bikes has placed the TFL sort of official Boris bikes in jeopardy. And so finally, Ross, of the three bikes that you tried, which one was your favourite? Well, I'm really conflicted on this because I really do love the Boris bike and have done for many years. I love what TFL is trying to do with this bike, but it does feel like it's had its day. Now, the eBoris bike is probably the nicest of the three bikes that we tried, but the difficulty of actually hiring it really spoiled the experience.

15:19So overall, you'd have to go for the line bike when you look at ease of finding them, the quality of the ride and the cost as well. Compared to the cost of a tube journey, you can definitely do the journey by bike for a comparative price and probably have a lot more fun getting around town. and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk this podcast will be back tomorrow at 4pm we'll see you then