Falling pupil numbers into the next decade: impacts, thoughts?

[greenteafiend]

(Apologies if there is already a thread about this)

The number of births in the UK seems to be on a gentle decline which started from about 2009 (as the financial crisis hit) and never really recovered. I think this is likely to continue, as all the trends causing people to reduce/delay kids seem to be ongoing, and immigrants increasingly seem to adopt similar fertility patterns to locals quite quickly these days (as opposed to a couple of decades ago, when foreign-born mothers seemed to have a lot more kids than local-born mothers). We've just had a "bulge year" for secondary intake, but it's likely that secondary numbers will start to go down quite soon.

There is no dramatic falloff across the whole of the UK, but I am guessing that the fall will be uneven, with some areas seeing steady or slightly-increasing numbers of kids entering school, while a few areas see significant falls.

I'm wondering what people in some areas are starting to see already, and what impacts this could potentially have in term of school choice, funding, the level of demand for private or selective schools, and possibly even mergers/closures in certain areas.

It really doesn't bode well at all. The UK birth rate is now below replacement rate.

Last year half of women reaching the age of 30 years had no children. In the 1960s women had 2.4 kids. Now it's as low as 1.55 children. Population collapse is catastrophic for the UK.

I've a third child born merely weeks after the April 2017 cut off. I struggled to buy her milk, baby food, clothes and my husband works full-time. I lost thousands of pounds every year. She still needed baby milk, baby food. I bought the cheapest I could Aldi's mamia milk was in 2017, £6.50. I was genuinely panicked when it rose to £7.29 a week. Her nappies were also aldi. I bought german brand baby food as it was the cheapest I could get. I bought german branded baby rice and baby breakfast. My husband had to sell the car. I buy her uniform from Aldi. 1.75 for a skirt and 1.75 for polo shirt.

There's no guarantee the birth rate will continue falling, there's been dips and peaks since the 1940s when the baby boomers were born, and then when they grew up and had kids, and then when their kids grew up and so on. The peaks are getting further apart and less pronounced but they're still there. High schools are facing lots of problems as they closed lots in the last dip and the remaining ones now can't cope with the bulge coming through.

I'd be surprised to see a turnaround, honestly, at least while I'm alive,
Cross-culturally, birthrates are falling fast everywhere. Places like South Korea now have fertility rates below 1. Even in Sub Saharan Africa, we're typically seeing women having three children, not seven or eight, in most countries; that's similar to European countries in the 1950s!

Half of women having no kids before 30 perhaps means people are wanting to establish themselves first. I didn’t have kids at 30 and squeezed in 4 by 35. I think there’s a lot to be said for waiting until you’ve finished education/ have a career/ have solid finances.

Delaying having DCs has a huge population effect as well as lower lifetime fertility rates.

Eg a woman has 2 DC at 40, they both have 2 DC at 40 so when she's 80 she has 4 DGC so there's 7 of her & her offspring.

Contrast to:

A woman has 2 DC at 20, they both have 2 DC at 20, when she's 40, (so 4 DGC) then they have 2 DC each at 20, when she's 60 (so 4 DGC and 8 DGGC) then they have 2 DC each, when she's 80.

At 80 she will have 2 DC, 4 GC, 8 DGGC and 16 DGGGC so 31 of her and her offspring.

That's 24 'missing' people in the space of a lifetime.

That's where a lot of our population decline is coming from.

Two primaries to close in our city and others with reduced intakes (so less funding)

The later women leave pregnancy the higher the risks of down's. I'm not saying people haven't got valid reasons. Just that the population is in a massive decline.

Mixed classes, reception and year 1, for instance.
Schools merging under an executive head or closing completely.
The continued rise of academies.

To be honest all our classes are 32 in infants and juniors we try around 4-6 classes per year. One secondary just takes on students and one year has 13 classes in the local girls only school!!! Madness

It doesn't seem to be like that where I live. Our 1 local (2 miles away) secondary school is oversubscribed for the first time in years and my younger dc's primary school is oversubscribed too. New houses are popping up all over the place and they have had to build a new primary school too. People tend to have their first child relatively young, between the ages of 18 and 25 so that might make a difference. There are a lot of families with 4+ children too.

Its good if its falling.
Quality of life is lower with such high population.
Not helped by business doing as they do to make bigger profits.
Constant accidents on motorways here.
Most kids growing up in houses with tiny gardens.
Our village school doubled in size to 60. Doesnt cope with all the sen.
Theres nearly 300 per year at secondary. Awful behaviour

I can think of reasons for having children earlier rather than later, but Down's Syndrome isn't one of them. With the new NIPT testing (which is essentially 100% accurate and can be done a few weeks into pregnancy), you are basically only going to have a baby with Down's Syndrome if you actively choose to go ahead with the pregnancy. It is basically a non-issue now unless you choose it.

Most babies with DS are born to women under 35. Partly because most babies generally are born to women under 35 but mainly because these women are less likely to have the NIPT test.

Our population hasn't declined; it's gone up.

Eventually it will probably decline (though that depends very much on immigration levels). But for the moment it's continuing to increase.

The demographic momentum takes quite a long time to "feed through."

It will hammer the RI schools whose falling roles reduce funding and allow for their many off rolling neighbours to keep chucking out students unofficially so complex students make the RI schools ever more difficult

@Lovedthosechips maybe a ms school which due to falling numbers of nt students and faced with high sen student will rebrand into an sen speciality school.
all institutions evolve and change although it takes a long time.
change is never easy but will be necessary

Rebranding as an SEN specialist school costs serious money that school’s can’t access. In the meantime rebranding not being easy means that the most vulnerable SEN and non SEN students will still end up ultimately excluded but not before making some parents remove their children and some teachers leave in desperation.

We do, of course, desperately need more PRU, specialist SMEH and SEN schools but these should be planned, resourced and developed not bodged from the remains of failing high schools. It’s unacceptable to condemn some learners to a ‘never easy time’ because governments have not created the needed provision that has been repeatedly highlighted as necessary by educational leaders and the governments own reports.

Closed schools around the uk

• Ravenstonedale Primary school - 2013
• blackness school falkirk
• St Joseph's Catholic Primary Cockermouth - 1 student - 2023
• st pat's catholic primary camden

Birthrate in England and Wales drops to lowest level in two decades | Population | The Guardian

it really isn't - who will pay the pensions if no young to replace the old?

Closure of primary school in Hackney highlights struggle of London families | Education | The Guardian

Our y6 last year was full and when they left the nursery intake was 42 when normally we are pretty full for most classes. Reception is also only about 48 rather than 60.
Next year we will have teacher and TA redundancy.

The pace of the decline means that the impacts on some schools looks like being pretty catastrophic unless the govt changes the funding formula, doesn't it? And the Treasury will fight tooth and nail against any changes to the funding formula as it's a massive bonus for them.

But you're looking at secondaries being able to offer fewer subjects and fewer GCSE options, primaries having more composite classes and not being able to afford any specialist teachers (even if they still could), as well as schools closing as they already are in inner London.

There’s lots of reasons why we need a birth rate over 2. There’s lots of reasons why people limit the size of their families. Money being the main one. Costs of having a dc are high. If we have fewer dc working, we have less income for the state. We need that income for pensions, nhs, schools etc.

Schools are funded per pupil. Schools in rural areas have been asked to look at merging or federating for years! CofE usually refuse to. Others might but small mats have made this far more difficult to achieve. It’s not unusual to find many mats in a relatively small area. They all have their own schools so how do they merge with another not in their mat? When schools were LA schools it was much easier! LAs have a role in planning schools but forcing closures is virtually impossible. Schools have to decide themselves really.

Lower rolls is less money for the school. Providing a broad curriculum at a secondary with 700 on roll is more challenging than when the school has double the number. Falling rolls must lead to redundancy as staff costs are the highest cost. However slt is paid to manage these situations.

We're rural, and the local primaries are bursting at the seams. But that's only because around 20 years ago, 2 or 3 smaller ones merged into larger ones and due to the horrific amount of local greenfield building development going on, numbers are rising.

If many people are not net contributors does having a larger population actually work @TizerorFizz?