Pupil numbers in England’s schools are predicted to shrink by 12 per cent over the next 10 years, after the government revised down its predictions in the face of “notably lower birth projections”.
New statistics published by the Department for Education show the government is expecting the state school population to shrink by almost a million children, from 7,859,000 this year to 6,915,000 by 2032.
The decrease is much larger than was predicted last year. In 2021, the government said it expected to have 7,269,000 pupils in the system by 2032, meaning its prediction has been revised down by almost 5 per cent in just one year.
