More children are now getting into their first choice of state primary school as falling birth rates make their mark on primary school admissions.
The total fertility rate has fallen from 1.9 babies per woman in 2010 to 1.4 by 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. The 2024 figure represents the lowest value on record for the third consecutive year.
Research by Hamptons using Department for Education data shows that the proportion of primary schools making offers to 100% of people who put them down as a first choice has risen over recent years, hitting 72% in 2024/25 before dropping slightly to 71% in 2025/26. This is up from 52% of schools making offers to all first-choice preferences in 2015/16.
Cutting the data another way is to look at the number of schools that made offers to fewer than half of their first-choice applicants. These proportions have vacillated over the past couple of years, but the general trend is the same, with the number of primary schools making offers to less than 50% of first-choice preferences more than halving from 134 in 2015/16 to 62 in 2025/26.
This essentially shows that the particularly sharp drop-off in the birth rate post-Covid is now hitting primary school admissions. The same trends haven’t been seen for secondary school yet as the falling birth rate hasn’t worked its way through to secondary schools – but it will do in three to four years’ time. The total number of children under 16 in England is expected to fall by 6% over the next decade, according to the think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies. (In addition, however, it is worth noting that many of the state secondary schools that make offers to the lowest proportions of first-choice applicants are academically-selective grammar schools.)
Looking in more detail at the 62 primaries that made offers to less than half of first-choice applicants for the 2025/26 academic year, many of these are in expensive areas in the southeast of England and London, where parents have traditionally paid a significant house-price premium to buy into the catchment area of a sought-after state school – even though there is no guarantee their child will get a place.
For instance, Fox Primary, in London’s Kensington and Chelsea, made offers to 35% of families who named the school, which was rated “outstanding” by Ofsted in 2023, as their first choice. The average price of a semi-detached house in this area is £2.86m.
It is important to note that while these percentages primarily reflect more parents putting a school down as their first choice than there are places, the drop off in child numbers at primary level means some schools have gone from being a two-form entry to a one-form entry. This obviously means they will make offers to fewer pupils.
In London, the latest analysis by London Councils forecasts a decrease of 2.5% – about 2,775 places – in reception pupil numbers over the next four years, reflecting both the capital’s falling birth rate and families leaving the city, often in search of more affordable housing.
Moreover, councils are responding to the demographic shift by cutting primary school places. Nationally, the number of primary places has declined from 709,143 in 2016/17 to 683,507 in 2025/26. Schools are funded on a per-pupil basis and significant declines in student numbers are often associated with school closures. According to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), 38 state primaries across England have shut since 2024, with London hardest hit (with 15 closures).
