To ask what will happen to primary schools now?

[drspouse]

My DS is 13 and AIUI that's the largest birth year and then there is a decline.
DD is 10 and almost everyone got their first place choice of secondary school in her year. Her school is advertising that their Reception is not full (DS was allocated another school and then got in on the waiting list).
So what happens when the number of pupils dips further? The primary school has got a nursery and baby unit, but it's got one classroom per class and it can't really close partially - it's two form entry - what happens to schools that eventually have a full class fewer?
A secondary school has closed locally and there are probably village primaries that will close but if this big town centre school has spaces eventually some schools will lose a whole class full, won't they?

Yes, and sadly redundancies are being made as we speak.

It's an issue in London...not sure where else? In London it's probably due to high house prices and lack of social housing. People are either choosing not to have DC and/or moving out

That's interesting @TheNightingalesStarling - they could do that at DD current school. I wonder if the nursery expansion (recent) will take over the Reception building at some point.

It's an issue in some areas of London.
We're in an outer borough. Loads of kids getting 6th choice for their secondary schools including DS.

The birth rate is lower AIUI because of the birth rate being lower in the generation than now has 5 year olds.
When my DS generation is old enough to have kids then it will go back up a bit I think.
Edit: I've just looked it up and it is lower per adult as well as lower overall so it's not just that there are fewer adults of childbearing age. But GenX is smaller than the baby boomers and they are now having grandchildren.

Secondary age is still high in numbers.
It's the little 4-7 year olds that there aren't enough of.

This is actually happening a lot in London. A two form entry will reduce to 1.5 form entry likely reception or year 1 first and then as that year group goes up the school will gradually shift to a 1.5.

In one from entry schools if the numbers dwindle to the point that there is significantly reduced classes they will combine classes where needed. But ultimately of the numbers aren't there they will close.

A lot of schools in London are experiencing significantly declining pupil numbers. It's sad as some schools that were at the heart of the community once are now gone and the buildings converted to luxury flats.

Yes because those kids were born 11 years ago....in 6/7 years time when the current reception aged kids are going into secondary, this will become an issue for secondary schools too.

We are facing redundancies across the school. Our TA staff for the whole school will go from 6 to 4, even with children that require additional support. Classes will eventually merge, we are so badly funded it's almost bordering on ridiculous. This is what happens when you have a low predicted bith rate and lack of funding we are in the NW.

It seems they are taxing private schools partly to force more kids into state to fill these gaps to prolong the agony, with most now not being able to afford both primary and secondary as well as 6th form.

Having less students (eg the extra £pp from private school children not taking up the spaces) hasn't helped so far so hard to see how keeping the numbers up with those spaces filled will help.

Suburban North West LA. Mixture of affluent towns and more deprived towns. Not much open countryside.

The same few schools every year are popular and fill no problem. Interestingly, these range in location from the most affluent parts to the poorest. But the vast majority of schools are undersubscribed. Last year a lot of schools, despite having a PAN of 30, took numbers in the teens. I can’t imagine these schools will be around for much longer.

I’m down south and my local primaries are both 4 form entry and over subscribed. Def an issue in some areas but certainly not in others.

I’ll be interested to see what happens to our local primary, which has PAN of 60 but gets 48 most years. Maybe they’ll bring pan down to 45, do some combined age classes and it will become a major stress for families in the village who might have to go elsewhere (rural, no undersubscribed schools particularly near us).

The primary in our previous village had a PAN of 13 and they did mixed age classes. One of the classes is 3 school years combined (years 2-4).

I don’t even think it’s area specific. I think it’s school specific. About 20% of our LA’s primary schools are massively oversubscribed and the maximum admitted distance is regularly below 0.3 miles. These tend to be the schools that either have amazing ofstead or amazing SEN or both. The other 80% of primary schools are either just hitting PAN (with no appeals and a huge maximum distance) or are way below PAN.

There’s a bit of a bulge in the 3-4 year olds here, people got bored working from home!!!

Yes, and some laid off will go to those areas to get new jobs. Some will retire, some will go on supply and many (who are fed up with being treated the way they are) will leave the profession altogether.

Hopefully, they will be re-purposed into technical colleges and adults education centres to get people into work or plugging gaps in the job skills market.

In our local area only 1 primary/infant school was oversubscribed for the 2025 intake. All of the rest have spaces. The school my daughter goes to for years was a "you have to live in catchment and go to church for years" to get a place. They have 18 places available in September for a 3 form intake. It will be real issues on finances as 72 is too many for 2 classes but not really financially viable to have to fund 3 classes.

I do wonder if they will move to a 2 form intake and reduce PAN to 60 from next year. It is the best state school in the area so it is very surprising.

They shrink. Merge classes, and have fewer staff.

Some of the London decline is specific to inner London I think, because once wfh or hybrid working was established, it accelerated the normal move out of London which has happened for generations, when families get older.

Everyone shuffles around. Our small rural village primary of 86 students usually has a reception class of about 12. Last year they took in 23. Some rural schools are thriving.

We’re at a rural primary with declining numbers. They’ve started to mix classes. There’s another tiny school not far away that’s got even less - they’re talking about closing it

Population is falling in predominantly White British areas. Population rate is what, currently 1.4 babies born to White British mothers, but population is rising due to immigration.

I’d say population of our town is at least 95% white British.

It’s going to double in the next ten years with new build developments. Houses won’t be cheap so I’m presuming the current population rate will be similar regardless to birth country origin.

My LA is asking around for schools that have spare classrooms to turn them into SEND bases or units. It will be interesting to see if more of that happens.

In our area, we’ve already had one state school (that was always over subscribed) go from 3 form entry to 2, one prep school go co-ed from being single sex and another prep close (the prep that has closed always picked up applications from parents disappointed with their state allocation, but this year nearly everyone in our town got their first choice).