Projected rise in pupil levels

The number of secondary students in Sunderland will rise by 12% over the next five years, increasing pressure on statefunded schools.

The Department for Education (DfE) forecast shows that Sunderland City Council will have 17,337 students between 11 and 16 years old in 2023-24, 1,884 more than this year.

The 19,596 secondary places available in 2016-17 in Sunderland would be enough to meet demand in five years, unlike in 71 English councils where students demand is growing at a higher pace than schools capacity. Besides Sunderland, there are more places than students in 65 other local authorities. The department’s data measures total school capacity but is not broken into age ranges so, according to teachers unions, there may be under-capacity in specific student years groups which is not revealed by the total number of places. Local government chiefs said that many councils will face a secondary school “emergency” unless the Government allows local authorities to open new schools or expand academies.