Herts primary school with no pupils to close in April

Hexton JMI School, on the Herts-Beds border near Barton-Le-Clay, was founded in 1846

The closure date for a small primary school has been brought forward after it failed to attract pupils.

A council meeting has decided Hexton JMI School in Hertfordshire will shut on 14 April, bringing forward a planned August closure.

The school had 31 pupils in 2021, but space for 70. Two years later, it had 21 children.

However, last September, numbers had dropped to 11 - then two - with no pupils now attending the school.

Mark Mills-Bishop, deputy executive member for education, libraries and learning, on the Conservative-led Hertfordshire County Council, said there had been "significant concerns over the school's future financial viability and its ability to sustain the quality of education".

In 2021, the school's head of governors had pleaded with the authority to keep it open and hoped to increase numbers, council leader Richard Roberts said.

"We went with that proposal and sadly since then the numbers have declined and have now declined to zero," he said.

"When parents start to make decisions about where their children go to school it can be self-reinforcing - and it seems to have been in this case."

On its website, the school said it was founded in 1846 and "takes the best of the past and blends it with the modern world".

"Because of our small size, we get to know every child as an individual, in a way that other schools simply cannot - seeing to it that each pupil reaches their full potential," it said.