A Peckham head teacher has blamed student vacancies in her primary school on the lack of affordable housing in the area.

Helen Ingham, of Ivydale Primary School, told Southwark Council’s Education and Local Scrutiny Commission the percentage of vacancies was now lower than the borough average. Government funding for school is based on the number of students on the rolls.

Ingham said there was constant mobility at Ivydale Primary, with families moving in and out. She said she had seen families being re-housed out of the borough because of the lack of appropriate affordable housing. She added: “Anything that keeps families in the borough is going to help”.

So would a more thoughtful admissions process, she said. When asked by a councillor how parents could be stopped from moving schools, Ingham said there should be safeguards to guide parents back to their original school. A slower admissions process to ensure they are committed to a particular school would also make a difference, she said.

The head teacher said better communication between schools and local authorities was needed. She had attended many meetings, she said, where strategies for improvement were discussed but they were always followed by silence or random steps, taken without coordination.

Ingham said the issues pertaining to Ivydale Primary needed decisive action. “No one has the solution but I think some decisive decision making needs to happen,” she said.