Schools and Trusts trends: Summer 2024 update

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Each summer I get a chance to update the schools and Trusts CJK forecasting model, here’s this year’s update.

Points of interest:

1. ONS have reduced the size of the forecast demographic decline to 8%, not the 12% previously feared. This still means a challenging loss of 621,000 pupils needs to be managed, but it's less severe than previously feared

2. Academisation is picking up again, with 667 new academies in a year. Still, that means 15 years to achieve full academisation, so it seems like Local Authority schools will be part of the sector for a good while yet! But there is also a strengthening pipeline (the pipeline of Academy applications in January 2022 was 405; in June 2023 it was 550; in June 2024 it was 873) so it's possible the policy will gain fresh momentum

3. The growth in Trusts of 11-20 Academies is accelerating: 1000 Academies joined this size band over the last 3 years. At the same time, fewer academies are in Trusts 5 or smaller, as a range of policy levers encourage mergers. Service suppliers need to think particularly carefully about the needs of trusts of 6-20 Academies if they want to access this fast-growing community.

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Download the pdf below for free :-)