There has been a lot of discussion about declining pupil numbers in London recently. Understandably so – some boroughs have seen multiple primary schools close in recent years.  

But Centre for Cities analysis suggests that the prevailing framing risks being too London-centric. 

On the London side of the story – two key things are important to note.  

Firstly, the pupil decline is often framed in terms of families moving out of London, as if this were a new issue. It isn’t. Data limitations notwithstanding, there isn’t strong evidence that people of potential parenting age are leaving London much more quickly than they have in previous decades.  

Secondly, the present decline needs to be understood in the context of London’s late 2000s-early 2010s baby-boom. London saw a faster increase in pupil numbers than the rest of the country in the past, and it is now experiencing a more significant decline.  

The bigger picture though, is that pupil numbers are falling across the country and London isn’t the only focal point for this demographic shift. The Department for Education predicts that, pretty much everywhere, the number of children entering Year 1 in 2028 will be lower than it was in 2018.  

As Figure 1 shows, this will vary between around 5 per cent across much of middle England, while declines of up to 30 per cent are predicted in some authorities.  

Figure 1: Cities and peripheral locations are seeing the greatest decline in pupil numbers 

The places most affected by declining pupil numbers fall into two broad camps:  

Pupil numbers are falling significantly in the most peripheral rural locations, from Cornwall to Northumberland.  

And cities tend to be experiencing higher declines in pupil numbers than rural locations around them.  

Explaining this twin trend isn’t straightforward. Housing costs are likely an important factor driving trends across the South, while weaker economic performance means younger people are leaving rural areas.  

But neither of these factors will be the only reason. Housing costs, local population ageing, local economic factors, and a globally observed cultural shift in attitudes toward having children, all interact to produce these trends, and fully disentangling the reasons for these declines is much more difficult than describing them.   

But what is clear is that London isn’t exceptional. Over the next decade, local authorities and central government will need to plan for changing needs in schools across the country.