The Church of England is lobbying the government to change the law to make it easier to close small village schools.

There is currently a legal presumption against closing rural schools, and before one is shut a number of factors must be considered, including “the likely effect of the closure of the school on the local community”.

Now, the Church of England, which runs more than 70 per cent of rural schools with fewer than 110 pupils, wants the rules reviewed “to ensure decision-makers focus on the educational interests of children”.

Nigel Genders, the CofE’s chief education officer, told Tes: “Too often in the debate we put [educational quality] as a subsidiary question and say, ‘We don’t want to see the school lost because we have already lost the post office and the pub and the doctor’s surgery’.

“I just think that’s the wrong way around, and I think we need to start by asking, ‘What’s likely to give these children the best education they can have?’

“It may well be that we do that in a way that still means they can access it locally within their village. But it needs to be that way around, rather than asking, ‘How do we keep this village’s last bastion as a community presence open, which is the school, irrespective of what the quality of education might be?’”

The impact of school closures

Mr Genders said he believed the Department for Education was “very open” to the change.

The call to review the law is included in a previously unreported section of the CoE’s report Embracing Change: Rural and Small Schools.

Mervyn Benford, a former small-school head and information officer for the National Association of Small Schools, said the government’s current guidance “rightly requires a village impact study in closure cases”.

He added: “Sadly, recent Anglican policy wills the death of the village school as we have known it.”

Embracing Change reiterates the organisation’s 2014 conclusion that “small rural schools could not continue to operate as standalone units”, and stresses a need for them to “come together in formal groupings”.

It also acknowledges situations where small schools may have to close.

It says: “Where a school’s budget is under pressure and numbers on roll are low, it can be difficult to justify a decision to keep a school open when significant investment would be required to bring the building up to standard.”

The DfE said it regularly speaks to the Church of England about this matter, and will keep the issue under review.

However, it said there are no current plans to change policy in the way the CoE suggests.

This is an edited article from the 6 July edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week’s Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here.