Primary school offer day has become a bittersweet moment in many communities. While anxious parents will breathe a sigh of relief upon securing their first-choice school, the chance of success has increased as reception applications have continued to fall. Falling birthrates and the cost-of-living crisis driving families out of more expensive cities, such as London, has led to shortages in primary school application numbers. The result? Undersubscribed schools lose out, with those that are more popular filling their spaces.
This year in London, where some of the country’s highest-performing schools are located, (96% are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted), applications for reception places fell by 2.1%. It is a worrying continuation of a downward trend. On Wednesday, nearly 88% of applicants secured their first-choice school, compared with 81.1% in 2014 when records began.
A starker illustration of the problem can be found in the local authority of North East Lincolnshire. It has been able to offer every single applicant their first preference school. In the council’s almost breathless announcement of this news, it acknowledges “this is unprecedented” – and it speaks volumes.
In London, declining demand has resulted in the closure or mergers of schools, despite parent and teacher-led campaigns to keep them open.
It is not only an urban issue. In rural communities, primary schoolsare often at the heart of community life – from summer fetes and after school clubs providing much needed wraparound care, to charity appeals and quick chats at the school gate. Closures, therefore, are making a devastating impact. The county of North Yorkshire has more rural schools than any other part of England; it has had to close 34 primary schools since 2018, more than anywhere else in England over the preceding six years.
Driven by falling enrolment and the financial strain that ensues, the closure of a primary school is a blow to families, and a loss of employment for the school meal supervisors, caretakers, teachers and teaching assistants who make up its staff body.
As pupil numbers shrink, so too have school budgets in real terms. For the last financial year, the Department for Education (DfE) acknowledged that the funding which goes to mainstream schools has risen by approximately 7.1%. In the same breath, the DfE’s technical note unabashedly estimates that nationally schools’ costs actually rose by 7.7%. In a dispiriting summation, the DfE accepts that this means our schools have been given £250m less than it costs to run them.
As has been the case since the advent of Tory austerity, headteachers are forced to make impossible choices. Are they to cut teaching staff or reduce vital support services needed for pupils with additional needs in order to make their already strained resources stretch further? These cuts are landing at arguably the worst possible time – unprecedented numbers of children are seeking mental health support, persistent absence is at record highs and the demand for education, health and care plans has risen by as much as 50% in some councils in the past 12 months.
Despite a refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap, the government insists it is on a “mission” to break down barriers to opportunity for every child. To do so, it vows to work hard to “see a sustained rise in school outcomes” that will build “young people’s life skills”. These are empty words without the ballast of funding needed to secure their worthy aims. Even the DfE concedes schools won’t be able to afford the 2.8% pay rise offered to teachers without plugging the shortfall with that favoured euphemism for cuts – “efficiencies”. After years of austerity, where exactly is the “fat” schools are supposed to cut?
The government could – were it visionary and daring – consider the suggestion of former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Geoff Barton. Addressing this issue at the ASCL conference last year, Barton outlined how “population estimates predict that the number of pupils in England’s schools will fall by half a million over the next five years”. This, yes, could be viewed as a huge multi-billion pound saving. But, Barton proposed, “instead of raking this money back into the Treasury,” the government could alternatively see it as “a golden opportunity to put education on a more sustainable footing”.
Viewed as a dividend to be reinvested into our underfunded education system, this demographic shift is a chance to raise per-pupil funding and increase the amount additionally given to schools for improving the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils. It is, to paraphrase Barton, a policy costing not a lot extra, but which would nonetheless “make a world of difference”. The question is whether this government has the mettle to allow its fiscal prudence to align with its touted quest for social justice.
Our education system cannot weather further austerity, and falling pupil numbers should not be viewed as an opportunity to strip funding away from our children. The government must accept that a changing country requires a reimagined approach for a sustainable education system. Reinvesting in our children should be an easy choice to make. They are worth it.
Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer
