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?

Reduce the class sizes? They are stupidly enormous where we live anyway... seems like a good thing to me!

And yet small village schools still survive, DD has recently applied for a teaching post where the total school role is less than 20

To do that funding would have to increase massively! They can't cope with the pittance they have now!

Our school just reduced its PAN from 1.5 classes per year to just 1. Even then the reception class isn’t full for September.

Look at Hackney and Islington they tried to lower PAN but it isn't enough 10+ schools closed and others still at risk. It is a nightmare and very stressful for staff and children.

I am on supply in South London and go into lots of schools. It is rare to find a class of 30. Most classes have between 20 and 25 pupils and no TA or a shared one - they were the first to go as intake shrank. I also see lots of schools with mixed year group classes and empty class rooms as year groups and classes have been merged. There have also been school closures and mergers. When staff leave, they are not replaced.

Schools get funding on a per child basis, with the expectation of classes of thirty. Small class sizes is just a big financial burden that most schools can’t afford - your child being in a year group of 18 sounds lovely when they’re a needy reception child, it looks different when they’re in key stage 2 with tiny peer group, there’s no money for anything, trips are extortionate and rare because the cost is split between few and probably it ends up with mixed year group classes.

I'm in Greater Manchester and am an admissions officer for an LA it's the same in non rural areas and even on very large towns and cities across the area and same in West Yorkshire. All are areas of high pupil mobility with a lot of international new arrivals coming into the area but even then the classes are under their PAN in about 20% of schools I'd say

Quite a number of schools with spare classrooms in at least 3 LAs I know of are now being used as satellite sites for Special Schools. Others, especially those in older less accessible buildings are going to be having to make some difficult decisions in the next three years. The hardest hit are some of the Catholic schools who were faced with falling rolls in the early 2000s until Eastern Europe immigration massively boosted the numbers wanting Catholic education. There's still a fair number of African new arrivals especially Nigeria who want these schools but not like it was 10 years ago.

My school is reducing from a two form to one form entry. Teacher recruitment is very difficult so this will help. We'll also gain some space which will be welcome.

A lot of our local primaries are looking to see if they can open specialist resource hubs within their schools.

Also live in a major town rather than rural area. Population of nearly half a million.

We have several schools a whole class below pan. My DC's has filled 69 out of 90 places.

My son goes to a special needs school and, for reasons not very clear, we now share our Headteacher with another special needs school 50 minutes away! Under a different council. No idea why. Both of these schools have long waiting lists

More money and teachers available as not spread so thinly?

If only that were the case!

The budget is based on how many children you get through the door, so fewer children means less money. Less money means fewer teachers. Falling rolls generally mean mixed classes or teacher redundancies

Primary schools are closing in my area (south). I read that we’ve got something like 2000 surplus primary school places

The LA were looking to close 5 primary schools and 2 closures have been approved so far - there were legal issues with closing the other 3 so I’m sure they’ll look to close different ones before long

There may also be a knock on in terms of specialist provision or leadership time. Things like dropping the specialist music teacher who was brought in when classes were full, so there wasa bit more money about. Or dropping SENDCo down a few days a week and putting the deputy head or head into class teaching more. These can seem like good ways to balance a budget, but inevitably there's a loss of something.

@Mayflyoff This is happening already and will continue too. However, triple working staff is not sustainable in the long run. Workload is already a hot topic.

London here. Our local primaries are very oversubscribed, I think last distance offered is between 0.3 and 0.6.