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

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.

Amber Gorrell, director of the local schools network, 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 H

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