- The NUT believes that all children have the right to a place in a good local school; to be taught by a qualified teacher; in classes that are not overcrowded; and in buildings that are fit for purpose and provide all the facilities necessary to ensure a good quality education.
- Yet Britain is facing the worst shortage of school places, particularly primary places, for decades. This is resulting in overcrowded classrooms, primary schools expanding beyond an optimum size and children travelling further to school.
- According to theNational Audit Office (NAO),the DfE estimates that 348,500 extra school places will be required between May 2012 and September 2015, of which over 90 per cent are primary.[1]
- A survey of 131 local authorities conducted by the Labour Party in 2014 found that a quarter of councils(32) believed that Government funding for additional primary places was insufficient to meet demand for 2015/16 while 33 also thought that DfE cost assumptions for new places were not realistic. A total of 40 councils (26 per cent) were forecasting that their pupil numbers for the start of 2014/15 would exceed their 2012/13 space provision. This rose to 70 authorities (46 per cent) in 2015/16, 93 (61 per cent) in 2016/17 and 101 (66 per cent) in 2017/18.[2]
- London is particularly badly hit – with 42 per cent of the projected national place shortage by 2016/17 identified to be in the capital.[3]Central Bedfordshire, Bedford, Peterborough, Bristol, Slough and Manchester face the biggest demand for primary places outside the capital and all need to increase school capacity by over 20 per cent by the start of the 2016 school term.[4]
- Between 2001 and 2011, England experienced the largest ten-year increase in the birth rate since the 1950s and this has fuelled increased demand for primaryschool places.[5]
- In London, specific factors have, in addition, fuelled the school population rise. The recession has both drawn people into the capital for work and resulted in fewer families leaving. London schools are also now regarded as performing extremely well so families are choosing to educate their children in the capital.
- UK Government statistics show that overall pupil numbers in state-funded schools began to increase in 2011 and are projected to continue rising. In nursery and primary schools pupils numbers are projected to be 18 per cent higher by 2021 compared with 2010, reaching levels last seen in the 1970s.[6]
- In contrast, the number of state funded secondary pupils aged up to 15 has been falling since 2005 and is expected to continue to do so until 2015 when the rise in primary pupil numbers will start to flow through.[7]
- Population changes are not a new phenomenon and local authorities,who are responsible for providing sufficient school places, have traditionally been able to plan to meet rising and falling demand. The significant factor in the current situation is that, since 2010, the Government has removed and undermined local authorities’ legal powers to deliver new school places.
- Local authorities have lost the power to plan and build new maintained schools, because the Government says that any new school must now be an academy or free school.[8] Yet free schools depend upon a provider coming forward to propose a new school in a location of their choice, which may be in an area with surplus places rather than one where there is additional need. According to the NAO there had been no applications to open mainstream primary free schools in half of districts with a high or severe forecast need for new school places by 2015-16.[9]
- Furthermore, local authorities cannot direct an academy or free school to expand as they can in the case of maintained schools. Academies and free schools have brought in an irrational competitive marketplace for school places rather than the rational planned provision that local authorities were able to guarantee in the past.
- In March 2014 Councillor David Simmonds, Conservative Chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board, called on the Government to allow councils to create new schools: "By giving power to create schools back to councils, government could ensure places for children from the ages of four to 18 can be delivered according to local demand, and in line with the local needs of mums and dads and their children."[10]
- The NUT also believes that the solution to the school place crisis is to give local authorities back the legal powers they need to plan and provide enough school places in their local areas and for the Government to provide sufficient funding to enable them to do so.
- For more information about the NUT’s School Place Crisis campaign go to:
Produced by the National Union of Teachers
[1]National Audit Office (December 2013), Establishing Free Schools, London: The Stationery Office. p.15. Available:
[2]Press Association (6 April 2013), ‘Labour warn of looming school places crisis’, Guardian[online]. Available:
[3] London Councils (2013),Do The Maths: Tackling the Shortage of School Places in London, London Councils, p.3. Available at:
[4] Local Government Association, ‘Councils warn of rising demand for primary school places’ [online]. Available:
[5]National Audit Office (March 2013), Capital Funding for New School Places, London: The Stationery Office. p. 9. Available:
[6]Department for Education (21 March 2013), Statistical Release. National Pupil Projections: Future Trends in Pupil Numbers [online], pp. 2-3. Available:
[7]Ibid, p.3.
[8]Section 37 and Schedule 11 of the Education Act 2011.
[9]Establishing Free Schools, p. 7.
[10]Local Government Association (14 March 2014), ‘Council work on school places paying off, but more still needed’ [online]. Available: