If you're planning to have kids, think carefully before living in a rural area

[user1477391263]

About a tenth of all councils are at risk of bankruptcy and the spiralling cost of delivering children to school by taxi has been noted as one of the factors. We've already seen more than one bankruptcy this year. The finances on this are going to get very ugly very quickly over the next few years.

I don't really have any practical advice or suggestions other than "Think carefully before buying a house in a village, and be prepared to have to move house if you child turns out to have challenges that require a special school." Rural bus services will probably mostly evaporate as well - they cost a fortune to run.

Spiralling SEND transport budgets threaten financial sustainability of England’s largest councils, report reveals - County Councils Network

I definitely agree with stop voting conservative in rural areas. These are often conservative heartlands but still rural dwellers require the same level of public service as those in cities.

I do think that there may be some that do not fully factor schooling into decisions to move to more 'idyllic' rural locations often to older larger houses in picturesque villages. You escape many of the problems of urban life but escape practicalities such as the school run and a disproportionate amount of tax payers money is directed to schools with small class sizes. Remember teachers need to live somewhere as well and if local housing is expensive it will be hard to attract them.

we also have the phenomenon of retirees eventually becoming unable to drive and the dream retirement home with no public transport suddenly becomes a prison.

Come off it @ladygindiva , rural life doesn't have the wonderful life of cities. You know, not as many stabbings as cities, less drug traffic, less pollution and traffic congestion. And in rural areas you are so often close to green spaces where your kids can run around, appreciatenature and get lungfuls of (semi) fresh air. You are depriving your kids of the realities of city life. It's unfair on them.😉

All true. But solution is not to hollow out rural areas more. As you say vote out Conservatives. Or rather vote in people who care about rural areas. Vote in people who care about other people beyond their millionaire cronies.

Similar here, not that I'm farming but I'd say a good 40% of kids at our village school come from their own farms, another 20% are equine (several race horse stables) more again working in dairy and feed industry, large animal vet practice, x2 fisheries, all within catchment area of our wee village school.

Well said 👏

I find the benefits to living semi rurally far outweigh any negatives. Dd loves it, we love it.

This is def. true, but on the other hand, providing all services to rural areas just costs loads more. Anything involving transport (like sending transport to get kids to school, or delivering helpers to old people's houses) will obviously be far more expensives because very low population densities mean huge distances per person. But even things we wouldn't really think about, like waste collection and delivering utilities, are much more expensive for the countryside, basically for the same reason.

In Oz, where distances are so much bigger and farms are often really remote, it's accepted that your kids will often need to be homeschooled when very young and then put in boarding schools (which are state-subsidized) in town from 12 or so. The UK countryside, however, is mostly not remote enough that most people would be satisfied with this as a solution.

Disabled children getting their education aren't bankrupting local authorities.

Such a nasty, disablist thing to say.

The government are bankrupting local authorities in fact, Local authorities are bankrupting themselves. Ours spent a couple of million quid buying a piece of prime seafront land to build luxury flats on, but couldn't get full planning permission so the project failed. The entire project has now cost over £60million, and the bloody flats aren't even going to be built. How far that £60million could have gone to supporting disabled children instead of the local authority's vanity project.

@KeepGoingThomas is that true? That’s outrageous

My children were picked up in a minibus. Which I believe I said.

My ex is and was and remains a farmer.

You were very very rude. And you still are. By saying I was born here, that was shorthand for anyone who could contextualise what I was saying, that my life is here. My support network, my friends and my whole life is here.

Also, again, the UK is more than England.

It's not SEN kids in taxis that are bankrupting the country. It's the corrupt million and billionaires who have every tax dodge going and who behave in ways that are illegal.

What's it to you anyway since you live in Japan?

My 4yo was picked up by school bus at 8.10. The routes started at 7.55 (school started at 8.35).

She loved that bus! It was basically 30 mins chilling with friends twice a day.

We need people in the countryside as much as towns. We lived where we lived then as that's where the army camp was.... all the kids were military at that school.

This fix is perfect. (Also disproportionately affects women)

All the other concerns aside about the possible malicious intent of the first post

WTAF can the average person do about this? Vote strategically and carefully of course, but what can they do right now?

👍🏻

For all those saying village schools are closing and attract disproportionate funding per pupil than town city/schools - this does vary regionally.

Most village schools here are at capacity or over subscribed. They are the preference over town schools where parents can accommodate this. A lot of parents at my kids school drive IN from neighbouring towns.

Funding is also allocated and calculated per pupil, so not sure where the disproportionality comes from? I wouldn't be so sure that a well managed small school isn't financially viable. They just do things differently/share more resources.

There will be larger schools that struggle financially. It's not pupil numbers that drive it, it's good financial management and management of resources. Like anything.

So many generalisations in this thread come from people who don't appear to actually have experienced rural education first hand.

There are lots more things that are a drain on Local Government finances btw than school transport. But again, these claims appear to be from people who are READING about LG finances and have no working experience of Local Government.

So don’t live rurally because you might have a child who might need to go to a specialist school and you might need to pay for transport or drive them yourself?

Back in the real world, if you have a child with special needs, school transport is just one of the things you may have to consider, and there will be pros and cons to living anywhere E.g. closeness to family and employment.

Hardly a drip feed given that even without knowing the precise situation, it can be assumed that somebody with a child with SN might need support from family.

www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/29/more-90-primary-schools-in-england-to-close-or-face-closure-for-lack-of-pupils#:~:text=A%20combination%20of%20falling%20birth,doors%20open%20as%20a%20result.

"The problem was most pronounced in urban centres: close to half of the at-risk schools identified in the analysis were located in cities and towns. A quarter of them were in rural villages and a further one in six in more isolated parts of the country."

Seems that low pupil numbers affect ALL schools. ESPECIALLY cities and towns for those talking about the financial viability of rural schools.

Is this the same poster that started a thread about disabled children recently? The thread that ended up on Twitter?

The disablism allowed to stand on MN is abhorrent.

Our nearest bus stop is 5 miles always. So we own these amazing inventions called “cars” so we can drive to other places.

You're missing the point that your small village primary school will probably be closing soon, just like all the thousands of other other small schools that have closed over the past few decades.

@23treefrogs most small schools can only survive if they share resources across other schools. If you only have a small number of pupils it’s hard to incorporate the cost of headteacher, TA, admin, catering staff, utilities etc in the funding per pupil. You will also have to have mixed age classes which can be tricky (but not impossible) to teach.

With falling birth rate it is only going to get harder. Probably easier to close schools in towns as the next available school probably won’t be too far away but if you close a rural school it will likely involve a much longer school run to the next nearest school

I'll add.

You're supposed to know before you get pregnant whether or not any potential child you have will have SN, and more than that, what sort of SN they will have (because there are different schools for different types of SN).

@crcrumblingschools I'm very familiar with the challenges and economics that come with rural schools.

Of course, if rural schools try to operate like larger schools, they will find find themselves struggling. But in reality, most don't.

I live in an area that is 50/50. The rural schools DO have a different delivery model as you've outlined. But general statements saying they won't work because of it don't help anyone and don't factor in any regional differences.

Birth rates are falling everywhere and where I live, parents are optimisimg on that as an opportunity to get their children in to village schools over their catchment in the towns. Because the towns are deemed undesirable due to all the ASB.

I just wouldn't be so sure it's as black and white as people on the thread are making out.

The logic is sound. Less pupils = less money. But it isn't how it MUST work. And often doesn't.

@23treefrogs

Birth rates are falling everywhere and where I live, parents are optimisimg on that as an opportunity to get their children in to village schools over their catchment in the towns. Because the towns are deemed undesirable due to all the ASB.

I agree, but that won't keep rural schools open. In our village, over half the pupils are driven in from the nearby town because the town's schools are "problematic". But sooner or later, the village school will close because there's no "local" need for it, and the town people will have to use the town's schools instead. It makes no sense to close a town school due to low pupil numbers because parents are driving their kids to a village school 5 miles away that has too few "local" pupils to keep it running.

But most schools are or will be part of academies eventually. As long as there are pupils, the academy doesn't care where it come from. An academy is not going to close a school that attracts a large volume of pupils because the pupil population has been displaced. These decisions no longer or will no longer sit with LA's and I think people are commenting like they do. LAs are responsible for making sure there are enough school places. The viability is decided by the academy/trust. Appreciate not all schools are academised yet.....and I won't get onto the pro/con debate. But the plan is all will be. As long as the numbers are there, the trusts don't give a fig where they are from.