“Buildings that were once full of life … begin to feel empty,” a headteacher explains. The school leader, who has asked not to be named for fear of unduly worrying parents, is on the frontline of a crisis unfolding in slow motion – the disappearance of the country’s children.
Running a state primary school in a well-heeled enclave of central London, the primary head is grappling with an education problem that she barely expected to encounter when she embarked on her career – how to respond to a dramatic fall in pupil numbers.
Declining school rolls in the primary sector are the first tangible signs of the declining birth rate in the UK and pose a significant political and public policy dilemma for Andy Burnham.
Shorts
According to official estimates, by 2035 there will be roughly one million fewer primary school children in England than there were in 2019, and even that could be an underestimate.
