It is fair to say these are particularly challenging times for school leaders with many primary schools having to manage real-terms decreases in their budgets. For heads who have only known budgets to increase year-on-year, it is a steep learning curve.
A combination of factors is driving this fall, not least the declining birth rate.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that the number of children (0-15 years) will shrink by 800,000 by 2032 (ONS, 2025).
Another analysis last year showed that the number of primary pupils has already begun to fall from its 4.73 million peak in 2018/19, with projections showing an average yearly decrease of 1.5% until numbers reach 4.06 million in 2028/29 (Cruikshanks, 2024).
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