St Charles Borromeo School in Templestowe closes two weeks into school year

St Charles Borromeo School in Templestowe started the year with just 12 students. Two weeks into the school year they’ve already closed their doors for good.

St Charles Borromeo has made the sad decision to close after student numbers plunged. Picture: Supplied

A Catholic school with only four pupils has closed two weeks into the start of the school year, leaving “traumatised” staff and students to move to new schools.

St Charles Borromeo School in Templestowe has suffered dwindling enrolments in recent years, with only a dozen pupils turning up on the first day of term. By last Friday, only four were left and the school’s closure was announced.

It’s one of a dozen or more Catholic primary schools with very low enrolments, and follows the closure of four similar schools in 2023.

One St Charles Borromeo School staff source said the “poor kids should not have been left to start a new year”.

She said the school “was left to close itself” after suffering declining student numbers from 2020.

“We had no support and there is so much grief- people are traumatised wondering how this was allowed to happen. Things were falling apart day by day,” she said.

St Charles Borromeo is one of a dozen or more Catholic primary schools with very low enrolments, and follows the closure of four similar schools in 2023. Picture: Supplied

The school had 221 pupils five years ago.

Parish priest Charles Balnaves, whose two sons attended the school from 1984, told the Herald Sun it was a “sad time for the school and parish”.

Father Balnaves said the decline was due to demographic changes in the outer northeastern area and competition with nearby Catholic schools, including one in the same parish.

“People who settled here in the 1970s have grown old and died and those who have moved in are having less children and have less interest in sending them to Catholic schools,” he said.

He paid tribute to “all those who have been a part of the school community in recent times”.

A spokeswoman for the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, the body that ran the school, said the decision “reflected changing demographic trends”.

“With the choice of four Catholic primary schools in adjoining neighbourhoods, enrolments at St Charles Borromeo have declined significantly over recent years,” she said.

It’s understood there were about ten staff members left.

David Brear, secretary of the Independent Education Union, said: “A school closure is always a very hard thing for students, families, staff and the local community. We’ll be working with our members at St Charles Borromeo to ensure that Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools provide appropriate support for everyone during this difficult time.”

Other Catholic schools with very low enrolments include St Philip’s School in Blackburn which has 33 enrolments, St Timothy’s School in Vermont which has 28 and St Pius X School in Heidelberg which has 45.

Catholic schools increased by 1.4 per cent in the last year, ABS data shows.

Originally published as St Charles Borromeo School in Templestowe closes two weeks into school year