English schools could lose £1bn by 2030 as pupil numbers fall

25 comments

1. Is there any surprise in this? Who can afford to have kids these days. We live in a society of low wages, high costs and almost constant uncertainty.

2. Smaller classroom sizes should in theory be better for education, schools are always underfunded and we need to change that but poverty is holding back the birth rate so we inevitably are going to have less students, its the causes we need to tackle

3. People are just not having kids anymore, we have a 4 year-old, we would love to have a 2nd but just can’t stomach paying another £25,000 for nursery, it’s too expensive nowadays

4. This funding policy is flawed. Maintain the current funding so that we can improve the state of education. We don’t want funding to follow the trend , which is downward.

5. Isn’t this a complete non issue? Schools are given money per pupil, if pupil numbers drop then obviously funding does too but each pupils share remains constant. The only way this is an issue is if some children’s funding is effectively being used to subsidize others. (Which is obviously the case, schools are very eager to have kids sign up for free school meals even if they take a packed lunch daily and I highly doubt that the funding received for special education kids is actually spent on them.)

6. The declining birthrate is going to devastate the economy in 15-20 years.

7. Why is this a story? Schools get money based on how many students they have. Less students = less money, still the same amount of money for the students who are there.

8. I thought they were being overcrowded and resources being eaten up?

9. We are entering a global decline in population. Every major economy has an imbalance between the older and younger population. China has been hit pretty hard too. There are a few outliers but generally every country will be in decline

10. Or they could keep the spending at the same rate and improve the spend per pupil and kids’ education.

    Anyway, aren’t pupil numbers going to increase massively as all the children of working class parents sacrificing everything for their kids’ education are forced back into the state sector by VAT on fees? Or is someone making things up?

11. We need more empty schools anyway. The current mode makes it expensive to have empty seats in a class so the school themselves are more likely to hold on to kids who would be better placed at a specialist school – whether this be learning difficulties or troublemakers.

    If we allowed for empty classes the school themselves would be able to handle growth if needed (many schools can’t take on more kids as it is) and it would allows temporary movement if we had issues in a building (like rac).

    Schools are a public service, not a business, and the government should stop acting like they are just a paper exercise

12. Because we’ve been brow beaten into believing work is more important than family, here’s a clue, it’s not.

13. 35(male) wont be having children because i cant afford to have children.

14. English schools receive funds proportional to the number of pupils… how is this not a good thing?

15. Less money needed with fewer children so it’s not a big deal. I can’t really see how numbers are dropping though, there are kids everywhere!!

16. Maybe it shouldn’t be based on pupil numbers? If they can keep shovelling tax payer money to private utilities companies, they can fund schools properly!

17. I had almost 40 secondary kids in one class, probably a good thing as teachers are leaving in droves

    Maths, science, mfl, media, computer science are always covered by non specialists

18. They just lower the pass grade till we are so dumb we can’t fight back when they screw us even more.

19. Ah yes, the adequate funding of schools is an untouchable mechanism that cannot be managed in any other way than a prorated amount

20. Shouldn’t the headline be that there are less children?

21. Can we take from this that millions of migrants are not having children.

    So who’s going to look after them when they’re older?

22. Nothing has changed in 30 years. programs I watch from the 90’s still harp on about the same current shit that is happening today.

    High outgoings….
    Low incoming…

    Blah blah blah

23. Wont have to worry about it for long, Fahim down the road has 4 kids almost of school age and another on the way.

24. I want to be a mum someday but the thought of struggling to make ends meet makes me realise why people choose not to. No wonder school places are falling, we can’t afford to look after ourselves on basic wages let alone another entire human. Shouldn’t have to be like that.

25. COULD. The operative word is COULD. Stop lapping up this clickbait nonsense!