Best Practice

School funding: How to set sustainable budgets

Many schools face the task of maintaining high educational standards while managing falling budgets. Jackie Keegan advises on how schools might set a sustainable budget which still allows us to deliver great results in the classroom
Budget challenges: As many as one in seven maintained schools – some 15.3% – were in deficit at the end of the 2023/24 financial year, the highest proportion since 2015 - Adobe Stock

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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