To be nervous about an undersubscribed one-form entry infant school with declining birth rates?

[Cheepcheepcheep]

Coming to crunch time for Reception applications. I like the idea of a small school for late summer born DD, as does DH - and one of our options is a village school (we are on the edge of a town and would get in based on the last 3 years of data, once due to under subscription and twice on distance).

We’ve visited and it seems very friendly and welcoming. However, it’s one form entry and they only have 20 kids in the current reception. I’m nervous about the idea of going for it as I worry about funding, especially given the decline in birth rates and roll numbers.

Our alternative (and my preference) is a two form entry that we should get into on distance and which has been full this year.

Arguments for this school are the fact we both like it and a lot of her nursery friends are going there.

AIBU for worrying about the size and what that might mean for the future and funding?

To add, as DD is late august we are applying for a deferral - this is just the choice in case we don’t get it. DH has agreed the bigger school would be better if she starts at just turned 5 rather than just turned 4.

This is fairly typical of what staff in small schools I know say:-

20 in a class sounds excellent - especially when they are little and need more help. How many children are in the higher year groups? I don't think they would close a school with 20 in each year group and your daughter will get lots of attention and support, more so than in a class of 30. If it's a good school and there is 20 or so in each year you are onto a winner. How big are the other year groups? I suppose my only concern would be significant year on year shrinkage: if year 5&6 were like 50 kids, 3&4 were 40, 1&2 were 30 and then reception was 20, by the time she's in 4 there might be no reception and like 90 kids in the whole school it might close before she has finished, but if it's a steady stream of small classes you'll be fine.

My kids thrived/are thriving at their tiny village school (which is not even in our village!) with only 15 children per year-group and 100 children in total! It's so lovely and they absolutely love it there!! 💗

https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/

OP if you want to see a school’s financial situation, have a look here. It’s eye opening.

I think you're overthinking it, sorry. The small school will be more than fine.

What happens when schools are in negative numbers for budget? Do they have to take it from the following year to repay it.
Or is it less of a problem if an academy school will other more wealthy schools?
A school we have applied for is In-year balance
-£190.7 K so alot of money!

They will often be expected to combine year groups with possible teacher redundancies. Support staff redundancies, blanket ban in supply-things like that.

My DD has left primary but was at a very small school - only 6 in her year group. DS is still at the same school but 18 in his year group. I think they have 11 spaces each year but they have flexibility depending on the overall number of children in the school. The school is highly unlikely to close - it’s very popular. Classes are mixed year groups. It’s fine. DD did not struggle with the transition to a bigger secondary school. inliled the fact the school was small when mine started reception. The only downside for DD was that there were only 4 girls in her year group so it limited the number of girl friends. However, she’s got lots of friends at secondary so it’s no problem and even then wasn’t a huge issue. Just go with the school you get a good feeling about ☺️.

How big are the other classes? DD is a 20 intake reception but the other classes are all pretty much full (194 so only 6 unfilled places outside reception). What's the ofsted rating of the school - if they do close schools in the borough it won't be small good and outstanding schools that they look to close first.

The school you're describing sounds very very similar to ours, on the edge in a more village section between 2 larger towns, single form intake with the catchment being mostly outpriced for families. I'm travelling 20 minutes each way on the school run to get there, the number of children actually in catchment is tiny. But over half DD's class are siblings and DS is about to head to secondary school so we've seen the school at all stages and couldn't be happier with it.

There was only 8 kids my DS reception class (room for 15) He's 12 now. Schools still open and doing well.

I think, as with anywhere really but it's probably more marked in very small schools, what matters is the quality of the teachers. I don't recognise a lot of the criticisms of small schools here from personal experience but I can see how they could be a problem. We had an exceptional Head I think, and she, the rest of the staff and governors made huge efforts to ensure that being at a small school didn't mean our children missed out on opportunities beyond the core curriculum. If anything I would say my DC did more activities because they were in a small school and everyone participated in more or less everything rather than the most able being picked for teams etc. By the time I was in junior school I had already been labelled and thought of myself as "clever, fairly artistic but useless at sports so don't even bother" but that didn't happen to my children and they were much more willing to try stuff outside their natural comfort zones. I'd say it's a feature of a lot of their ex classmates too and I have heard comments to that effect from teachers at the secondary school they went on to so I don't think it is coincidence.
I also think geography is important. We are in an area where a large proportion schools are small and therefore there's a strong network of small rural schools across the county and collaboration is common eg several schools will book a specialist sports coach between them or share equipment. That might not be the case everywhere. Geography also surely affects sustainability of small schools. If you are a tiny school on the edge of a town with plenty of others in reasonable travelling distance then I'd think it's a lot harder to justify staying open than a similarly sized rural school to which children are already travelling a significant distance in an area without public transport.
As ever with these things all anyone can do is look carefully at all their options and do what they think is right for their individual child.

They are supposed to create a solid plan on how they will make the books balance.
As staffing is the main cost the focus will be on staffing but there will be other aspects.

Is there a surplus covering that in-year deficit? As that will impact how drastic the plan' is.

I work at schools where the TA hours basically halved and they had to share a HT, Bursar and Senco with another school for instance.