Falling birth rates leave schools with extra places

A council has revealed that falling birth rates throughout the last decade have led to thousands of school places being left empty across the west of a county.

West Northamptonshire Council said up to a quarter of reception school places in the region are currently surplus with forecasts pointing to a decline in pupil numbers over the next five years.

According to data published in March, one in ten primary school places remain vacant, with some areas seeing surplus levels as high as 30%.

The Department for Education (DfE) recommends a surplus of 3% to 5% to allow for flexibility in admissions.

At a council meeting in March, Ben Pearson, the assistant director for education, said: "Where that is going to lead to very quickly is schools telling us that they are not financially viable and they are going to have to be looking at things like redundancies."

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, there are 855 extra spaces in secondary schools and nearly 3,900 unfilled spots in primary schools.

The trend coincides with a rise in home education with 1,169 children being taught at home, with 329 withdrawn from school since September 2024.

Mr Pearson added that the council was critical of all planning applications offering to build a new school and would continue to turn down proposals that would impact other cohorts in the area.

According to the authority, it has recently improved the way in which school places are forecast and currently has a 98 per cent accuracy rate in trends verified by the DfE.

Mr Pearson added the freed-up classroom space could be transformed into a positive and create "huge opportunities" for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision, looking at how the surplus resources could be repurposed.

Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.