Let’s get practical.
Money is one thing — but money doesn’t teach children.
People do. And buildings do.
If we want smaller class sizes, better pastoral care, more support for SEN, modern facilities, and enough physical space to breathe, then the entire system needs to be expanded. Not blown up and replaced — just expanded, strengthened, and modernised.
This means:
- a much larger workforce,
- a larger school estate,
- and a lot fewer bucket-catching leaks from classroom ceilings.
Let’s start with people.
Staffing the System: Teachers, TAs, and the Workforce Shift
Money is important, of course. But money doesn’t stand in front of a class, or run safeguarding meetings, or fix a child’s reading confidence. People do. And if we want smaller classes, better pastoral care, more one-to-one support, and broader curriculum options, we need more people. A lot more people.
Private schools justify their fees partly because they offer class sizes of 15–20. The state system runs at around 26.2. If we want private-level outcomes, we need private-level capacity. So let’s aim for an average class size of 20 pupils — not indulgent, just sane.
How Many Extra Classes and Teachers Would We Need?
Total pupils: ~10 million
Current average class size: 26.2
Number of classes today:
10,046,000 ÷ 26.2 ≈ 383,000 classes
Number of classes needed at size 20:
10,046,000 ÷ 20 ≈ 502,000 classes
Difference:
≈119,000 additional classes
Each class requires a teacher, and when scaled up to include non-teaching periods, specialist subjects, and leadership staffing, we arrive at:
≈175,000 additional teachers
That’s roughly a 31% expansion in the teaching workforce. Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? Not remotely.
Teaching Assistants and Support Staff
England employs around 0.6 teaching assistants per teacher. Keeping that ratio stable requires:
0.6 × 175,000 ≈ 105,000 new TAs
Then there are the people who keep schools functioning as actual buildings:
- cleaners
- caretakers
- admin and reception staff
- pastoral and safeguarding teams
- IT technicians
- site managers
These roles add a further 40,000–50,000 people.
Total staffing expansion:
≈320,000–330,000 new jobs in education
This is not a tweak — it is a structural uplift of the educational workforce. But it is also a job-creation engine in a country that could do with one.
How Many Come from Unemployment?
The UK has around 1.8 million unemployed people. Even assuming only a moderate level of recruitment from this group — say 60% — we still get:
≈200,000 people leaving unemployment
This reduces national unemployment by around 11%. It also creates two fiscal benefits:
- Benefit savings: ~£2bn/year
- Extra tax receipts: ~£2.2bn/year
Total offset: £4–4.5bn annually.
No, that doesn’t pay for the reform. But it softens the blow and starts a positive cycle: more employment, more experience, more stable families, better outcomes for children.
Buildings: Where Do 120,000 Extra Classrooms Go?
If we want smaller classes, we need somewhere to put them. You can be as creative as you like with timetabling, but eventually physics wins: you run out of rooms.
Luckily, the UK has a surprising amount of underused educational and commercial real estate that could be revived for this purpose.
8.1 The Existing School Estate
England currently has:
- 64,000 school buildings
- ~90–100 million m² of space
- ~£220bn replacement value
Decades of underinvestment have left the estate in poor shape — hence the RAAC crisis and the annual ritual of buckets under ceilings. To maintain a healthy estate, engineering standards recommend:
3% annual maintenance + 1–2% renewal
Which gives:
£8–11bn/year as a proper maintenance budget
We currently spend under £2bn. Hence… well, you know.
Mothballed Schools: The Hidden Reserve
Because of shifting demographics, some schools have closed in recent years. Many of these buildings remain structurally sound and owned by the public sector. Councils often continue paying for:
- security
- insurance
- minimal heating
- site monitoring
Some are deliberately “mothballed” for future reopening. Others are simply left in limbo.
Using a conservative assumption, let’s say:
30% of new classrooms can come from reactivating unused schools
That covers:
36,000 classrooms
Still needed:
≈84,000 classrooms
Vacant Offices: The UK’s Most Unexpected Educational Asset
The UK currently has around:
9.7 million m² (105 million sq ft ) of vacant office space
We need about 6 million m² to house the remaining classrooms. Let’s assume only half of this demand could realistically be met using office conversions:
- 3 million m² from office conversions
- 3 million m² from new construction
Office-to-classroom conversions are common internationally and can be done quickly and cheaply. They also put dead assets back to work.
What Would This Cost?
Sector-standard estimates:
- Office conversion: £1,200/m²
- New school build: £2,500/m²
So:
Conversions (3m m²): £3.6bn
New builds (3m m²): £7.5bn
Total capital for extra classrooms:
≈ £11–12bn
That’s it. For context: that’s approximately one year of HS2 spending — when HS2 was still mostly theoretical.
Maintenance Impact of the Larger Estate
Adding 6 million m² increases the estate size by about 6%. This raises the sustainable maintenance and renewal budget to:
£10–12bn/year
Still entirely within a sensible, Nordic-style education investment approach.
Future-Proofing: Avoiding the Next RAAC-Style Crisis
Pupil numbers are projected to fall slightly by 2030. This means we don’t need endless new builds — we need resilience, not expansion for its own sake.
A smart approach includes a dedicated future-proofing budget:
£1–1.5bn/year
inside the broader maintenance budget, covering:
- climate adaptation
- decarbonisation
- ventilation and air quality improvements
- digital infrastructure
- flexible learning spaces
This avoids creating another generation of buildings doomed to crumble 30 years from now.
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