Academic year 2021/22

School capacity

School places in primary and secondary state-funded schools including sixth form. Local authorities’ pupil forecasts and planned changes to school places.

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• Produced by: Department for Education
• Published: 23 March 2023
• Last updated: 24 March 2023

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• Supporting files

  Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

• Data guidance

  Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

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Featured tables

Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).

10 featured tables

• School sixth form capacity, by local authority, 2021/22

  Number of schools with reported sixth form capacity, reported sixth form places and Sixth form pupils on roll in schools with reported sixth form capacity, by local authority, 2021/22

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• School capacity by local authority, 2021/22 – Secondary

  School capacity in 2021/22 by local authority for secondary schools. This includes: number of schools, number of school places, number of pupils on roll, number of schools at or in excess of capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity as a percentage of total places, number of schools with one or more unfilled places, unfilled places and unfilled places as a percentage of total places

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• School capacity by local authority, 2021/22 – Primary

  School capacity in 2021/22 by local authority for primary schools. This includes: number of schools, number of school places, number of pupils on roll, number of schools at or in excess of capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity as a percentage of total places, number of schools with one or more unfilled places, unfilled places and unfilled places as a percentage of total places

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• Planned places by local authority, 2022/23 to 2024/25

  This includes local authority level data for primary and secondary schools on: planned additional places (permanent), bulge places (temporary for large cohort) and p laces to remove (permanent) from 2022/23 to 2024/25

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• Actual pupil numbers and pupil forecasts by local authority, 2021/22 to 2028/29 - Secondary

  Local authority level secondary forecasts and actual pupil numbers for 2021/22 to 2028/29

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• School capacity in England, 2009/10 to 2021/22

  School capacity in England from 2009/10 to 2021/22. This includes: number of schools , number of school places, number of pupils on roll, number of schools at or in excess of capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity, pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity as a percentage of total places, number of schools with one or more unfilled places, unfilled places and unfilled places as a percentage of total places

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• Estimated school places needed by local authority, 2022/23 to 2026/27 – Primary

  This includes primary local authority level data on the estimated number of primary places needed to meet modelled demand from 2022/23 to 2026/27.

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• Actual pupil numbers and pupil forecasts in England, 2021/22 to 2028/29

  Pupil forecasts and actual pupil numbers for 2021/22 to 2028/29 for year groups reception to year 13

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• Estimated school places needed by local authority, 2022/23 to 2028/29 – Secondary

  This includes secondary local authority level data on the estimated number of secondary places needed to meet modelled demand from 2022/23 to 2028/29.

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• Actual pupil numbers and pupil forecasts by local authority, 2021/22 to 2026/27 - Primary

  Local authority level primary forecasts and actual pupil numbers for 2021/22 - 2026/27

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

8 data sets available for download

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• School capacity - national only

  National

  Total number of school places, which includes sixth form places and excludes nursery places, reported by local authorities. Includes yearly and long-term change in the number of school places. File also includes number of pupils on roll from the May School Census; the number of schools at or in excess of capacity and the number of pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity; the number schools with one or more unfilled places and the number of unfilled places.

  • Number of rows: 39
  • Indicators:
    • Net change in number of school places since 2010
    • Net change in number of school places since previous SCAP survey
    • Number of pupils on roll
  • Filters:
    • School phase
  • Time period: 2009/10 to 2021/22

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• School capacity - national, regional, local authority

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Total number of school places, which includes sixth form places and excludes nursery places, reported by local authorities. File also includes number of pupils on roll from the May School Census; the number of schools at or in excess of capacity and the number of pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity; the number schools with one or more unfilled places and the number of unfilled places.

  • Number of rows: 5,901
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils on roll
    • Number of school places
    • Number of schools
  • Filters:
    • School phase
  • Time period: 2009/10 to 2021/22

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• School capacity

  School

  School places, which includes sixth form places and excludes nursery places, reported by local authorities. File also includes number of pupils on roll from the May School Census;  the number of pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity and the number of unfilled places.

  • Number of rows: 241,778
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils on roll
    • Number of school places
    • Pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity
  • Time period: 2009/10 to 2021/22

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• Sixth form capacity - national, regional, local authority

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Total number of sixth form places as reported voluntarily by local authorities; sixth form pupil numbers on roll from the May School Census.

  • Number of rows: 655
  • Indicators:
    • Number of schools with reported sixth form capacity
    • Reported sixth form places
    • Sixth form pupils on roll in schools with reported sixth form capacity
  • Time period: 2017/18 to 2021/22

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• School sixth form capacity

  School

  School sixth form places as reported voluntarily by local authorities; sixth form pupil numbers on roll from the May School Census.

  • Number of rows: 8,256
  • Indicators:
    • Reported sixth form places
    • Sixth form pupils on roll in schools with reported sixth form capacity
    • Number of pupils on roll
  • Time period: 2017/18 to 2021/22

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• Local authority planned changes to school places

  Local authority, National, Regional

  School places reported by local authorities in summer 2022 as planned to be added or permanently removed from their school capacity. Includes only projects with firm plans for delivery. Includes national curriculum year groups from reception to Year 13.

  • Number of rows: 96,444
  • Indicators:
    • Bulge places (temporary for large cohort)
    • Places to remove (permanent)
    • Planned additional places (permanent)
  • Filters:
    • National curriculum year group
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2024/25

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• Local authority pupil forecasts

  Local authority, National, Regional

  2021/22 actual pupil numbers on roll from the January 2022 School Census and local authority forecasts of pupil numbers for 2022/23 onwards. File also includes school places expected to be funded by housing developer contribution (HDC) agreements and housing infrastructure fund (HIF) agreements. Includes national curriculum year groups from reception to Year 13.

  • Number of rows: 212,984
  • Indicators:
    • Forecast housing developing contribution (HDC) funded places
    • Forecast housing infrastructure fund (HIF) funded places
    • Local authority pupil forecasts (includes 2021/22 actual pupil numbers)
  • Filters:
    • Year group
  • Time period: 2021/22 to 2028/29

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• Estimates of future school place demand - places needed, spare places (place planning)

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Estimates of future school places needed to meet modelled demand, calculated at planning area level and aggregated to local authority, regional and national level. Estimates reflect the position reported by local authorities at May 2022 through the School Capacity survey, supplemented with DFE internal data on central programmes which will add or remove school places. Includes national curriculum year groups from reception to Year 11.

  • Number of rows: 163,252
  • Indicators:
    • Estimated number of places needed: Additional need as positives and spare places as negatives
    • Estimated number of places needed: Additional need only
  • Filters:
    • National curriculum year group
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2028/29

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Supporting files

Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

1 supporting data file

• School Place Planning Estimates Technical Guidance 2022

  The guidance contains information on: a) the methodology used by the department in estimating future school places needed; b) the data sources and how they are used; c) how to interpret the place planning estimates data (including key limitations)

  Download (pdf, 878 Kb)

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Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘School Capacity: Academic Year 2021/22’ Official Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data.

The methodology accompanying this release should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

A description of how the school place planning estimates have been derived and how to interpret them is also provided in technical guidance document accompanying this release. Users should read this technical guidance to understand the practical applications and limitations of the data.

Coverage

This release reports on school capacity information in state-funded primary and secondary schools in England in the academic year 2021/22, as of 1 May 2022. Data are as reported by local authorities in the annual School Capacity (SCAP) Survey. 

Information is included on: 

• The numbers of primary and secondary school places from 2009/10 to 2021/22 , including unfilled school places and pupils in places that exceed their school's capacity (2019/20 data is not available due to the cancellation of the 2020 SCAP survey due to Covid-19);

• Sixth form capacity in schools, where submitted, from 2017/18 to 2021/22 (2019/20 data is not available due to the cancellation of the 2020 SCAP survey due to Covid-19);

• Local authorities’ pupil forecasts up to 2026/27 at primary level and 2028/29 at secondary level; including places to be funded through housing developer contributions (HDCs) and housing infrastructure fund (HIF)

• Local authority planned changes to school places to 2024/25, including additional, bulge (temporary places for large cohorts) and places to remove; 

• The department ‘s modelled estimate’s of future number of places needed, up to 2026/27 at primary level and 2028/29 at secondary level.

File formats and conventions

Conventions

The following conventions are used throughout the underlying data.
‘z’ Not applicable.
‘x’ Not available.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about School capacity statistics and data:

Pupil Place Planning team

Email: SCAP.PPP@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Robert Miller

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

Opening times

Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)