Ministers will proceed with plans to allow schools rated ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’ to claim funding to manage “significant declines” in pupil numbers.
But schools will need to show that places will be required within five years to qualify for the extra cash, and the expansion will only apply from September 2024.
It comes as falling pupil numbers are starting to hit primary schools. Schools Week analysis of government data showed plummeting pupil numbers will wipe out the need for the equivalent of 80 per cent of the new school places created since 2010.
Recent statistics reveal 1,161,976 school places have been created since 2010, most of them in primary schools. They were needed to accommodate a population bulge caused by a baby boom in the 2000s.
