The private school VAT slump in pupil numbers has “somewhat offset” the impact of falling rolls in state classrooms, researchers have said. A SchoolDash study has also warned taxpayer-funded schools will need to “shed more staff” to keep their heads above water, amid a continued drop in the number of children. And the analysts have revealed just how badly schools with the worst Ofsted grades have been hit by the crisis, confirming fears they would be disproportionately impacted. Help from VAT Since 2019, primary rolls have fallen every year, from 4.56 million children nationally to 4.33 million this year. At secondary, numbers continued to rise until 2025, before starting to fall. However, SchoolDash believes these reductions “have been somewhat offset by independent schools, which have been declining even faster and thus fallen as a proportion of all school places”. Across England, the proportion of children in fee-paying schools fell from 6.1 per cent in 2019 to 5.5 per cent in 2025. This equated to a reduction of 10 per cent. Over this period, the figure dipped in every region. In London – the region with the largest independent school share – it fell 6 per cent. The drop stands at 12 per cent in the south east. The reduction was particularly “noticeable” from 2024, when Labour’s policy of charging VAT on private school fees was announced, SchoolDash said. ‘Shed staff’ Among primaries, teaching staff numbers have been in “gradual decline”, while support staff levels have been “flat”, the organisation said. At secondary, both have been “gradually rising”. The “net result” of this, coupled with pupil number shifts, is that the ratio of children to adults has been falling in primary schools while staying broadly the same in secondaries. “Given the continuing decline in pupil numbers… along with chronic pressure on school budgets, this seems unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. In other words, schools as a whole will likely need to shed more staff,” SchoolDash said. Pupils nosedive in worst-rated schools The report also revealed the scale of the impact the falling rolls crisis has had on ‘inadequate’-rated schools. Among all mainstream primaries, the proportion of places filled has dropped by 7 per cent since 2019. But among those rated ‘requires improvement’ the reduction stood at 16 per cent and 24 per cent for those with an ‘inadequate’. “We can see that smaller schools and those with lower Ofsted ratings tended to show not only lower occupancy rates in 2019, but also steeper declines since then,” the report noted. Meanwhile, across all secondaries the number of places filled grew over the period (5 per cent). The increase falls to 3 per cent among those with a ‘requires improvement’. ‘Inadequate’ secondaries recorded a drop of 6 per cent. “As secondary pupil numbers begin to fall, it is likely that disparities will widen again, as already evident among primary schools,” SchoolDash added.