I am an educationalist by background. An English degree from Cambridge, a post-graduate certificate in education in English and Drama from Newcastle, led me into a teaching career in inner city secondary schools, finishing as a head of music to everyone’s surprise including my own. So how did I discover demography in my mid-fifties?
Well, it is intrinsically interesting of course. Birth, death and migration are important topics, and all of us think about them from time to time. I knew about Malthus, partly because he was one of the famous alumni of Jesus College… where I did my first degree, and his portrait hung in the hall alongside those of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and miscellaneous bishops.
Demography, however, shaped my teaching career. My first job was in a new and rapidly growing school on the outskirts of town, built to serve a huge new housing estate still under construction. My second job was in a small and shrinking secondary school on a 1920s council estate earmarked for closure. My third job was in a new school formed by amalgamating the second school with a near neighbour. The rise and fall of pupil numbers was of more than academic interest: they affected the very existence of the schools I worked in. I got used to studying forecasts, reverse engineering them to work out how they had been put together. As an officer of a teachers’ association I got to know the staff at county hall who managed schools at local authority level, negotiating the best way forward for staff. pupils and their families. Eventually I decided on a career change and went into local authority management myself.
I didn’t just do school place planning… admissions, capital projects, catering, data, early years, finance, governor services, human resources, information technology, school crossing patrols all fell within my remit. But pupil numbers remained central to what I did. For most of my years working in two urban authorities in the south east the theme remained falling rolls. It seemed that remorselessly, year after year, the number of reception children declined, and schools suffered the impact of surplus places. Our job seemed to be to manage this decline. Often in the primary phase this was achieved by amalgamating infant (4-6) and junior (7-10) schools to form all through primary schools (4-10). In the secondary phase we would remove mobile classrooms which had been provided in earlier times… or manage just the sort of amalgamation that I experienced in my own teaching career. This just seemed the way it was, until about 2008/9 when…
Jim, an esteemed colleague, came into my office clutching a sheaf of papers. “Andrew, I think you had better have a look at these.” He looked worried. “We’re going to have to add twelve new forms of entry in our primary schools in the next three to four years.” What?!? That was the equivalent of six typical schools. How could that be? I studied the papers and it seemed to be true, the tide had turned. Reception years were starting to get bigger, rather than smaller, and as they worked their way through schools would have to be enlarged. It soon became apparent that we were not alone…. many authorities were facing the same situation, particularly urban authorities. Looking back people say “but that was obvious wasn’t it?” Well, perhaps it should have been, but it really wasn’t, either in the professional community or amongst the wider public. A bit like a reversal in stock values or the housing market it’s only obvious in hindsight. Despite the shock, it was good news in many ways: expanding schools is a much more satisfying assignment than shrinking them or closing them. As this was before the beginning of the age of austerity, there were sufficient resources not only to add the required capacity, but to improve the condition and suitability of some of our schools at the same time.
Some year later I had the opportunity to retire early. Too good to miss! This gave me time to pursue my other interests: first and foremost sailing. But my professional interest in school place planning didn’t go away, and it wasn’t long before I was wondering if we couldn’t plan further ahead. I knew that the University of Southampton offered an MSc course in demography, and wondered if it would be appropriate for me. I had finished an MBA at the same university in 2010, and it was a year later that I tentatively made contact. “Come along… sit in some lectures… see how you like it…” said the head of department. I did. My fellow students were a diverse bunch… mostly mid twenties, from all over the world, and one or two mature students (but not as mature as me). From sitting in, it soon became apparent that it was assumed by everyone that I was on the course. I paid my fee, had my credentials checked and swipe card issued, and suddenly I was a student in was quite a challenging discipline for and English graduate, ex-music teacher and local government officer. But it suited me very well. Yes, it was intrinsically interesting. It was also very relevant to all those school place planning experiences that had shaped my earlier career. I’ve always liked numbers, and playing with computers, although I’m no mathematician or computer scientist. I enjoyed the course, came out with a good degree. Now I do long term interim management for local authorities, generally involving school place planning, and occasional shorter pieces of consultancy work. And after swearing I never would, I embarked on a PhD a couple of years ago… of which more another time.
I plan to update this blog at least once a month, maybe more often. It will cover my academic interest in demography, particularly local populations in the United Kingdom, and also related topics such as urban and rural development, planning and public policy, local government, and indeed anything else – because everything is connected.
Demographic Insight 