Where are school-aged kids located? Top 10 growing and slowing suburbs

Between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses, there was an increase of 174,600 school aged kids (5-17 years) across Australia – the equivalent of approximately 300 schools!

Where is the largest growth in school aged children?

It’s important to understand where the growth in school aged children is occurring, especially when it comes to planning new schools or expanding existing facilities.

Looking at primary school aged children (5-11 year olds) and secondary school kids (12-17 years), the top 10 growth suburbs from 2011 to 2016 are listed below.

Top 10 growth suburbs for Primary school aged children

Top 10 growth suburbs for Secondary school aged kids

For both primary and secondary school children, we can see significant growth occurring in the growing outer suburbs over the past 5 years.

Where are kids on the decline?

For primary school (5-11 year olds) and secondary aged children (12-17 years), here’s the top 10 slowing suburbs in terms of absolute change from 2011 to 2016.

Top 10 slowing suburbs for Primary school aged children

Top 10 slowing suburbs for Secondary school aged children

Suburbs that experienced declines in school aged children tend to be outer-suburban and regional areas.

What does it all mean? Deciphering the trends

So how can we better understand these areas of growth and decline in school aged population? It’s important to note that changes in population aren’t generally sporadic or unpredictable – they follow certain patterns that can best be explained by what we call the suburb lifecycle. This concept demonstrates that population change follows a cycle rather than a linear trend.

Typically, new areas are settled by young households comprising young couples and young families (with school-aged children or under), with some mature families. As these families grow, the average size of the household increases.

Following this initial rapid development, these households most often ‘age in place’: growing in size while staying in the area. This slowly shifts the demand for services, facilities and dwelling types as households mature.

As the children grow up and move out of home the suburb is left with more ’empty nester’ (two person) households, often living in large family dwellings. If a suburb can’t attract young families back into the area, it becomes increasingly populated by older couples or lone persons, and its population begins to decline with mortality. As an area ages, housing stock is freed up through migration and mortality, enabling families to begin re-populating the area and continue the cycle.

The suburb lifecycle

Planning for the future

Understanding the lifecycle that suburbs follow is important in helping governments and organisations predict changing demand for services, facilities and dwelling types. Areas that manage to minimise the loss of family-oriented and maintain diverse housing stock that can accommodate a variety of households are more likely to see the process of regeneration occur.

Granular population forecasts can be used to visualise the way these big picture population trends play out locally, providing school planners with an evidence base to help answer strategic questions about where and when to locate schools in the future.

.id work with a variety of education providers from the Catholic Schools Office, Department of Education through to individual independent schools, helping them make large scale investment decisions to ensure schools are located in the right place, at the right time.

For more detailed information, read our eBook: Planning education provision in a changing Australia.

We work closely with the education providers, helping schools and organisations make important planning decisions that cater to growing or slowing numbers of kids in different areas. We are keen to talk to school planners and decision makers about the way demographic trends are impacting local areas, so come and talk to us at these upcoming events:

• School Growth Planning & Delivery – 19th & 20th September 2017, Sydney Boulevard Hotel
• Association of School Business Administrators (ASBA) – 25 to 27 September 2017, International Convention Centre, Darling Harbour

.id is a team of population experts, who use a unique combination of online tools and consulting to help organisations decide where and when to locate their facilities and services, to meet the needs of changing populations. Access our free demographic resources here.