Is an undersubscribed school a bad thing?

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I’ve noticed in recent years that some of our local schools are really pushing that they’ve got spaces. This is primary and secondary.

One of our local secondary schools is advertising for people to reconsider following offer day.

They are putting on more open mornings and the headteacher is even offering one on one meetings with prospective parents to answer any questions. I’ve never heard of anything like it.

What will this mean longer term for the undersubscribed schools?

Closure if it's every year when there are enough children in the locality to attend. If a school can't attract pupils they'll get less funding which in turn affects teaching numbers.

OP, where are you and what do you mean by undersubscribed, exactly?

There are schools which have places available in March but then fill them by August. If that trend continues, then funding is not at risk.

A different question is why the school is undersubscribed.
There can be plenty of reasons, from demographics (many families have been leaving London) to poor academic results vs other schools in the area.
Other common reasons can have to do with the school being in a rougher area, or having lax discipline.
Sometimes these concerns are justified, sometimes the reputation of certain schools (for better or for worse) isn't fully justified by the facts.

A lot of schools here have had undersubscribed years purely due to the low birthrate. It's not a reflection on the schools but if it was to be a long term thing then as PP said closure or mergers could be considered.

The last couple of years have been low birth years. My DD school has 4 form entry but this year it's only 25 per class.

A school with spaces broadly needs the same number of teachers as one that is full, but has less funding as each pupil brings funding with them.
A school which is consistently undersubscribed has fewer spare funds.

OTOH a school with slightly smaller classes may be nicer for the pupils and the teachers (after all class size is a selling point of private schools)

(A primary that is undersubscribed regularly ends up having mixed year group classes as it can't afford to have 7 class teachers when it only has enough pupils/funding for 5 full classes.)

Primary schools are currently undersubscribed all over the place due to falling birth rates. Some will get closed, reduce number of classes or merge. It doesn’t necessarily reflect on the nature or quality of the school, more the local birthrate. Although of course in an area with lots of choice the less popular schools will drop in numbers first.

Secondary is a different matter. Secondary schools are only just starting to see lower birth rates hit and it won’t really hit till a couple of years’ time. So I would assume a secondary school with spaces is less popular for a reason. It might not be that it’s a bad school- it might be, for example, that it’s a faith school and people of that faith have dropped off in number but others don’t think of applying there. Need to look at the school individually.