The real threat to schools? Falling birth rates

Labour’s proposal to impose VAT on private school fees will, we are often warned, lead to state schools becoming overloaded as parents withdraw their children from the independent sector and try to find alternative arrangements. That may turn out to be true in some areas in the short term, but in the longer term there is a different problem facing the state and independent sectors alike: a falling population of school-age children. It isn’t excessive class sizes which threaten to be an issue so much as shrinking classes, leading to school closures and amalgamations with other institutions.

For nursery and primary schools in England, pupil numbers peaked in 2019. By 2028, according to the government’s projections, pupil numbers will fall a further 207,000 to 4.36 million. That is equivalent to 100 Grange Hills’ worth of pupils simply evaporating over the next four years.