by Matt Goodwin, TCW
IF you want to see the future of a nation, look at what’s happening in its schools.
A few days ago, the Department for Education quietly released figures on the characteristics of school pupils in England from the 2025-2026 year. While you’re unlikely to hear them discussed on BBC Verify, the results are striking.
They not only paint a detailed picture of what is now unfolding at speed in England’s state nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools but reveal how the country in the years ahead will be radically transformed. Because what is visible in our schools today will inevitably reshape the nation tomorrow.
Consider the sheer pace of change that’s sweeping through England’s schools. For the first time in history, the share of school pupils across all types of school who are white British has fallen below 60 per cent, while the share from minority ethnic backgrounds has surged to a record high of nearly 39 per cent. A decade ago, during the 2015-2016 school year, 70 per cent of all school pupils were white British. Today, only ten years later, it’s already fallen to 59.7 per cent.
Over the last ten years, in state-funded secondary schools, the share of pupils who are white British has fallen from 71 to 59 per cent. In primary schools, it’s down from 68 to just below 60 per cent. In state nurseries, it’s down from 69 per cent in the 2016-17 year (earlier data was not available) to just 47 per cent today, meaning that in England’s nurseries white British children are already a minority.
In particular areas of England, the very latest figures are even more astonishing. In Blackburn, just 38 per cent of all school pupils are white British. In Bradford it’s 37 per cent. In Manchester it’s 28 per cent. In Birmingham it’s 23 per cent. In Leicester it’s 19 per cent. In Luton it’s just 13 per cent. For the first time in the history of England, white British school pupils are now a minority in every single one of the 33 local authorities in London (last year this wasn’t true for Bromley but now white Brits are a minority there too).