FALLING birth rates are likely to lead to many of Bradford’s school reducing pupil numbers in the near future.

For many years, Bradford schools have looked to expand to meet the rising number of children reaching school age.

This has led to new schools being built, “bulge” classes and schools increasing their Pupil Admission Numbers.

Since 2010 an extra 9,300 primary school places have been created in the district, along with an extra 7,235 secondary school places.

However, a recent report to Bradford Council’s Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee has revealed that pupils numbers seem to have peaked, and in future it would be much more likely that school decrease their admission numbers than increase them.

The most recent figures show that nationally birth rates are at the lowest level since 2004, and in Bradford primary school have so far proposed to cut 1,910 spaces since 2019.

A school’s funding is directly related to the number of pupils attending the school, so too many vacancies mean that schools do not receive the maximum possible revenue.

The report to the committee said: “The monthly data received from the Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust shows that the numbers of younger children living in the Bradford District is reducing.

Falling birth rates lead to admission numbers at two primary schools being reduced

“These reductions in the numbers of younger children are District wide and as such will have an effect on schools across the District.

“In some areas, schools have already experienced significant reductions in pupil numbers and have begun to make organisational changes and/or PAN reductions.

“PAN reductions which over time will result in a total reduction of 1,910 primary school places have been agreed by the relevant decision makers since 2019.

“This reduction in numbers of younger children is not unique to the Bradford District. Local Authorities across the Yorkshire and Humber region, and nationally, are experiencing these changes.

“Data published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in July 2020 showed that the number of live births in England and Wales in 2019 were the lowest level recorded for the fourth consecutive year and were the fewest since 2004.

“ONS has not yet released the final annual birth statistics for 2020, but the provisional data release indicates that there were fewer births in 2020 than 2019.”

The reduction in birth rates would mean that pupil reductions would likely be limited to primary schools in the coming years, but would soon begin to impact on secondary schools.

At the meeting, in City Hall last week Emma Hamer, Intelligence & Sufficiency Strategic Manager, said: “What we’ll see in a number of years is the reduction of PANs in both the primary and secondary sector.

“We’re working with primaries in a number of areas to work out how we manage this reduction. We haven’t seen any evidence of birth rates booming in the past year, the trajectory is births are declining.”

There are currently two school expansion projects. Work at Ilkley All Saints Primary will create 105 places and the new Silsden Primary School project will create an extra 60 places.

But she added: “There are no new expansion projects planned.

Councillor Rizwana Jamil (Lab, Bowling and Barkerend) pointed out that Councillors often deal with parents whose children don’t get into the school they want, and asked if the reduction of pupil numbers would make this worse.

Marium Haque, Deputy Director for Education and Learning, said there was a danger that less popular schools could become unviable. She said; “We don’t want to get to a situation where schools have to close.

“We want a district wide agreement that we want to keep as many schools open as possible. That means we have to work with academy trusts, some of which are less willing to work with us than others.”

Mrs Hamer said: “It is not the case that we’ll say ‘this school is less popular, let’s close it.’”