Most local parents know there’s currently a crisis with places in the borough’s secondary schools. The Council does, too: ‘All schools in Wokingham are heavily over-subscribed. Many year groups in our schools are already full with local children’ (WBC, Guide to In Year school applications 7/1/25). But there’s hope this may be changing, according to a 2023 School

Sufficiency report provided to WBC’s Children’s Services. Birth rates in the borough have been dropping, it said. This has led to falling primary school rolls, and the reduced size cohorts would soon be entering secondary schools.
So, will ‘falling rolls’ be the manna from Heaven that solves the school places crisis? Not quite, and certainly not yet.
It’s true that, between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, the 4-years-and-under share of the borough population declined in percentage terms. The ONS says it came down down from 6.5% to 5.6%. But with percentages, we always need to ask ‘Percentage of what?’ The population of the borough grew between those dates from 154,400 to around 177,500. So because of the overall population growth, the actual number of children 4 years and under declined only very slightly. It went from 10,036 in 2011, to 9,940 in 2021. That’s just 96 kids fewer, out of a total number of about 10,000 that schools have to find places for. With school capacity, it’s the real numbers of children that count, not percentages.
What about now, in 2025?
In addition, where we are now matters more than where things were a few years back, at the last census. The exact population size of the borough in 2025 is unknown, but mid-2022 population estimates published by the ONS suggest the population of Wokingham was 180,967. That’s an estimated 2,736 people above the 2021 census figure.

Supposing they showed roughly the same demographic profile as in the census, about 140 of them would be 4 years and under. Which immediately cancels out the reduction by 96, between the two censuses. And since 2022 there have been more small children on the scene with further population growth, replacing kids moving up out of the 4-years-and-under bracket (plus or minus in/out migration). Without doubt, the age group at or coming up to Reception age is now bigger than it was in the 2011 census, not smaller.

Influx from abroad
But that’s not all. The ONS’s post-census population estimate was obtained by projecting the growth rate up to 2021. In the last few years there has also been a considerable influx of children from Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine. How many in the 4- years-and-under age group? Getting accurate figures from WBC is never easy, as residents can testify, but media

reports and council sources offer some indication. The charity Chance to Thrive in 2022 mentioned ‘more than 125 children coming to Wokingham borough from war-torn Ukraine’. WBC Children’s Services committee minutes (1/11/23) say ‘Over 800 children of Hong Kong families had been admitted to local schools in the last 12 months.’ About six months later WBC announced (26/4/24) it had found ‘spaces for more than 350 children arriving from Hong Kong alone in the past year’. Since the end of 2022, then, there have probably been around 1,000 Hong Kong children coming into the borough. Together with Afghan and Ukrainian children, and taking the last three years into account, the total can hardly have been less than 1,500. How many fall into the 4-years-and-under category I don’t know, but some of them must.
Mixed messages?
In fairness, the Shute End planners are well aware of the position:-
‘[P]ost-2021 there has been a significant increase in international migration of children into the Borough. Much of this is due to increased numbers… from Hong Kong. Numbers of additional primary age children per year have more than doubled… Currently the high migrant numbers from 2021 onwards are at least balancing the impact of falling birth numbers on rolls.’ (Wokingham Borough School Places Strategy 2024-29, p. 5)
Some readers may remember, incidentally, that when Cllr Gregor Murray (Conservative) made a similarly worded point a couple of years back, he was accused by LibDem Executive member Prue Bray, councillor for Winnersh, of unjustly ‘singling out’ Hong Kong incomers, and he had to apologise. He left local politics shortly afterwards. I haven’t heard that Cllr Bray got the Council officer(s) that wrote the above-quoted passage to apologise.
So: ‘high migrant numbers’ are at least outweighing falling birth numbers, the council says. Yet last month the borough’s School Forum liaison group was told by WBC’s Director of Children's Services that nine schools have seen a reduction in pupil numbers, and their budgets in the coming year will be reduced. Out of the 55 primary schools the Council says operate in the borough, quite a significant number are affected by falling rolls.
Does this suggest the borough is emerging from the school places crisis, then? No, the bigger picture according to what Children’s Services told the Schools Forum is still: ‘There is little evidence to support the creation of a Falling Rolls Fund.… It is more likely that funding will be required for growth.’
Lop-sided picture
How come we get these rather diverging messages coming out of the Borough Council? Are falling rolls affecting the position much, or not?
The situation seems to be that schools shows the same lop-sided unequally distributed picture that we’ve had with housing. In some places, there’s been a lot of development, with all the pressure that places on infrastructure and services. In other places, there’s been very little. So some primary schools are getting fewer pupils, while others get a lot more.
In Finchampstead, WBC’s schools budget shows the Gorse Ride Junior School admission number has been reduced from 64 to 32 for Yr 3 admissions in 2024/5, and likewise in 2025/6. In Twyford, Colleton Primary School’s admission number for reception has declined from 45 to 30 in 2024/25, and again for 2025/26. Other schools where roll numbers have gone down in the last few years are Loddon Primary (Earley), Earley Primary, Beechwood Primary (Woodley), All Saints Primary & Keep Hatch Primary (both north central Wokingham Town), and Robert Piggott Infant & Junior (Wargrave).
In the West of the borough, it’s very different. In Shinfield, ‘Rolls are rising and there is a current local deficit of 30 Reception places… and a projected deficit against whole school capacity by 2025/ 26’ (Wokingham Borough School Places Strategy 2024-2029, p. 12). Farley Hill Primary numbers were up 33 this school year, too. The projected deficit by 2026/7 for the Shinfield area is of over 300 primary places. What will happen to the children? They can’t be bussed around the borough, as secondary age kids can be. Primary schools are supposed to be within walking distance of the child’s home.
So even when across Britain primary school rolls are falling, parents in the Shinfield area are struggling to get their early years children into school, and we’re told it will get worse.
So much for the developer-friendly policy of the previous Local Plan: “Create a Strategic Development Location, and with the S106 money get the schools etc. that you need”.
And now we're told that an SDL at Hall Farm will get us the schools etc. that we need…
Believe that, and the developers have a bridge to sell you (a new one over the M4).
Pat Phillipps
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