25th September 2026
For many years Highland Council has faced difficult decisions over small rural schools.
Some have closed, others have been mothballed, and communities have often argued that a village school is about much more than the number of children sitting in its classrooms. It can be an important part of the life and future of the community.
But the demographic situation facing Highland is now becoming harder to ignore.
Scotland is having fewer children, and the consequences are beginning to work their way through the education system.
The Scottish Government's latest pupil projections show that primary school numbers have already been falling since reaching a peak in 2017. They are expected to continue falling until around 2034. Secondary school numbers are projected to fall after 2025 and continue declining through to 2035.
Overall pupil numbers across primary, secondary and special schools are projected to continue falling through to 2035. The Government points out that this is happening despite projected population growth, because much of that population growth is expected to come from inward migration. Almost every Scottish local authority is projected to have fewer children.
Highland illustrates the problem particularly clearly.
The National Records of Scotland estimates that Highland's population was 237,260 in 2025. That is slightly lower than the previous year, although the longer-term population has increased substantially.
But the age structure is changing.
Between 2001 and 2025 the number of Highland residents aged 0 to 15 fell by 12.2%, while the number aged 75 and over increased by 83.8%.
The projections for the next decade are even more striking.
Between 2022 and 2032 Highland's overall population is projected to increase by 2.2%. However, the 0 to 15 age group is projected to fall by 14.1%, while the 75 and over population is projected to increase by 32.5%.
In other words, Highland could have more people but fewer children.
That is a very different challenge from simply planning for population growth.
The birth rate is part of the explanation
Highland recorded 1,748 births in 2024, down from 1,788 in 2023.
The fertility rate fell from 1.45 to 1.42. That is still higher than Scotland's overall rate of 1.25, but it is well below the level required for a population to replace itself naturally.
There has also been a particularly large fall in births to teenage mothers and women under 20. Between 2004 and 2024, births in that age group fell by almost 58%.
This matters to schools because a reduction in births today does not immediately empty classrooms. The effect moves through the system.
Fewer babies today means fewer children entering primary school several years from now. Those smaller primary cohorts then become smaller secondary-school cohorts a few years later.
It is therefore possible for a school to appear reasonably full today while the council can already see a substantial reduction coming down the pipeline.
Highland is already planning for falling rolls
Highland Council's school-roll forecasting system looks 15 years ahead and takes account of birth rates, population projections, local migration, new housing and other factors.
The council itself now explicitly notes that falling birth rates mean that new housing does not necessarily produce an increase in school rolls. New homes can simply move pupils between catchment areas while the overall number of pupils continues to fall.
Previous Highland school-roll forecasts estimated that the total number of school-age children would fall by almost 10% over five years and by a further 7.3% over the following five years, producing a cumulative reduction of 16.6% over ten years.
That is a substantial change in the demand for school places.
It also creates a difficult financial question.
A school does not become 20% cheaper simply because it has 20% fewer pupils. The building still needs heating, maintenance and insurance. Teachers and other staff are still required. School transport may actually become more expensive when children are spread over a larger geographical area.
And that problem is particularly acute in Highland.
A small school serving a remote community cannot necessarily be compared with a small school in a city where another school may be only a short distance away.
But fewer pupils do not necessarily mean fewer schools
This is where the argument becomes much more complicated.
If pupil numbers are falling, there is an obvious financial temptation to reduce the number of buildings.
But closing a rural school can have consequences far beyond education.
Families may decide that a community is less attractive if their children have to travel elsewhere for primary education. A young couple considering moving into an area may think twice. The school can also provide employment and act as one of the few remaining public institutions in a village.
That means a school closure can sometimes contribute to the very population decline that originally caused the school to become vulnerable.
There is no simple answer to that problem.
Thurso provides an interesting example
At the same time as Highland is dealing with falling pupil numbers, it is proposing substantial investment in Thurso's schools.
The council is consulting on plans for a new education campus costing up to £100 million. The proposals would bring Pennyland Primary and Miller Academy Primary together in a new primary school, alongside a new Thurso High School. Mount Pleasant Primary would remain open.
The proposals are part of a wider Community Point of Delivery for Thurso, bringing education and other services together.
The council says the investment is necessary because a number of existing school buildings are ageing and no longer well suited to modern education.
The consultation is due to run until 30 September 2026, with a report expected to return to the Education Committee in 2027 before any final decision is taken.
So the future of Highland's schools is not simply a story of closing buildings because there are fewer children.
It is also about deciding where the council should invest in new or substantially improved facilities when the overall number of children is falling.
The difficult question for Highland
This could become one of the biggest challenges facing Highland Council's education service over the next decade.
The council has to maintain a huge geographical network of schools while the number of children is falling and the number of older residents is increasing.
At the same time, some communities may still need new or improved schools because existing buildings are unsuitable, even though the overall number of pupils is declining.
There is also migration to consider. Highland's population is still projected to grow because inward migration more than offsets the natural decline caused by there being more deaths than births.
But migrants do not necessarily arrive in the places where school capacity is available, and not all migrants have school-age children.
That makes long-term planning much more difficult.
For Caithness, the question is particularly important because communities are spread over a large area and travelling to another school can mean a very different journey from travelling across an urban neighbourhood.
Highland Council will therefore have to balance several competing objectives: providing good education, maintaining reasonable journeys for children, supporting rural communities, making proper use of public buildings and, ultimately, living within a limited budget.
The old argument about whether a small school has enough pupils may increasingly become part of a much bigger question.
What should Highland's school network look like when there are fewer children but a very large area to serve?
That is a question which is unlikely to go away. And with Scotland's birth rate falling, it is no longer only a Highland question.
It is becoming a Scottish one.