Private schools say the impending addition of VAT to school fees is a big factor in the drop in pupil numbers this year, ahead of the cost of living and the falling national birthrate.
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said a survey of 1,185 member schools in the UK found their rolls fell by 1.7% when the school year started last month, compared with 2023.
Julie Robinson, the ISC’s chief executive, said: “This data couldn’t be clearer: parents are already removing their children from independent schools as a result of the government’s plans to charge parents VAT. This is just the tip of the iceberg and the knock-on effect on schools is significant, with many small schools already at risk of closure.”
The ISC said if the 1.7% fall was replicated across the UK’s 2,500 private schools, it could add more than 10,000 pupils to state school rolls and cost the Department for Education (DfE) about £80m in England alone.
However, figures for England show that state school enrolments have also been falling, mainly because of the UK’s declining birthrate over the past decade.
The DfE said there was a 2.3% fall in the number of applications for primary school places this September, and a 1.7% fall in secondary school applications. There were steeper falls in some regions, with London councils forecasting a 4.3% fall in secondary school enrolments and some boroughs a 10% fall in primary school-age enrolments.
The ISC said its equivalent year groups reported a 3.9% fall in reception classes and a 4.6% fall in year 7 enrolments nationally.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) forecasts that the addition of VAT, which is expected to be imposed from January, will over time result in between 3 and 7% of pupils moving from the private to the state sector.
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the IFS, said the decline in the birthrate meant private school rolls were likely to fall even without the addition of VAT, while private school fees have recently risen faster than inflation, including a 9% increase in 2023-24.
The DfE’s latest forecast is for state pupil numbers in England to fall by 172,000, or more than 2%, by 2028, meaning that the state sector has capacity to absorb the outflow from private schools. The government says the £1.5bn raised from imposing VAT and ending business rates exemptions will be used to fund 6,500 teachers in state schools.
The ISC said it was considering legal action against the VAT policy but wants to wait until the government publishes more details in the budget this month.
Robinson said: “We want to work with the government to mitigate some of the biggest challenges of this policy, including looking at delaying the implementation of VAT, and seriously reviewing its impact on young people with special educational needs and disabilities.”
