Parents devastated as axe falls on northern beaches school

3 weeks ago 4

The NSW government will shut a northern beaches public school at the end of the year despite an eleventh-hour bid by parents to stop the closure.

Parents at Kambora Public in Davidson were told on Wednesday the primary school would stop operating after student numbers plummeted from a peak of 240 in 2018 to just 30 pupils this year.

Kambora Public School families were told the school would shut at the end of the year.

It is the first public school in metropolitan Sydney to be placed into “recess” in two decades and comes amid steep enrolment losses from the NSW public school system over the past five years.

Director of the local schools network, Amber Gorrell, told parents it was unsustainable to keep the school open when other nearby public schools, including Mimosa Public, Wakehurst Public and Belrose Public, were within several kilometres of Kambora.

Donna Hearn, whose daughter, Emily, is in year 1 at the school, said she was devastated by the decision, but after months in limbo the news did not come as a shock.

Fewer young families moving into the area, stagnant housing growth and a catchment area that borders a national park are among the reasons for the rapid drop in enrolments.

Hearn said not capping enrolments at Mimosa Public meant more students were applying out of area and were being accepted.

“Kambora had the stigma of being a small school and parents became scared because student numbers kept falling. If we had more support from the department, we wouldn’t be in this crisis,” Hearn said. She has enrolled her daughter in a northern beaches private school next year.

It comes a month after parents at north shore and northern beaches Catholic schools were blindsided when the Broken Bay diocese announced drastic changes to 13 of its schools, including closing St Cecilia’s primary school in Balgowlah and St Philip Neri Catholic Primary School in Northbridge.

Parents and students at St Cecilia’s are fighting for more transparency around the changes, while one parent is pushing for an independent and ministerial review of the diocese’s decision.

Public and Catholic schools on the northern beaches and other affluent Sydney suburbs are struggling to lift student numbers as young families flock to the city’s fringes and private schools continue to increase their enrolment share. About 21,600 fewer students were enrolled in the state’s public schools last year compared with 2019.

Kambora parents were told at a Northern Sydney District Council P&C meeting in March that the school was under review. A consultation was held in term 2, with more than 130 submissions received.

Parents campaigned for the NSW Education Department to pause or cancel the closure, and suggested capping enrolments at other schools, expanding the catchment area or opening a pre-school or daycare on the school site.

Kambora is about a kilometre from Mimosa Public, which has increased enrolments to 557 this year. In the past two years, about 60 students who left Kambora went to Mimosa Public, while another 20 went to Wakehurst Public. Belrose Public has lost about 40 per cent of its students since 2018.

Kambora P&C president Lily Stewart said submissions favoured keeping the school open, and the consultation with parents “felt like a box-ticking exercise”. She will move her two children, Louie and Nina, to Belrose Public from next year.

“My son was really affected by it, and it became incredibly difficult to justify staying,” she said.

Rumours of closure have prompted families to shift to other local schools: a small nearby Catholic primary school, St Martin’s, has increased its numbers to more than 100 students.

Kambora Public opened in 1972 and has a small catchment that takes in part of Garigal National Park.

In the letter to parents, the NSW Education Department said placing a school in recess meant the school grounds and facilities would be maintained, but no staff or students would attend the school.

“Should prospective local enrolments rise substantially in the future, or another education provision need be identified, the decision to place the school into recess will be reviewed,” Gorrell said.

Parents were told students moving to another public school within The Forest public school network would be given $500 per child for new uniforms.

About 19 public schools were in “recess” at the end of last year, all in regional and rural NSW.

Local Liberal MP Matt Cross said the education department “failed to take action” when the school population declined from 2018.

“Warning signs on enrolments were ignored. Enforcing the local enrolment area was ignored and the community was ignored,” he said.

“Closing a metropolitan school in Sydney is, as admitted by Department of Education officials in budget estimates in August 2025, quite a rare occurrence.

“That is the gravity of the situation.”

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