GOVERNMENT TOOLS
CONSULTING
What's changing around your school, and what it means for enrolments
Population change, migration and new development are all reshaping catchments. How these changes impact your future enrolments depends on who your school serves and where in Australia you are.
Save your place at this upcoming briefing
Tuesday 27 October 2026, 1:00 to 2:00pm AEDT
12:30pm ACDT · 12:00pm Brisbane · 10:00am Perth. Online, 60 minutes.
There is a lot that shapes a school's enrolments, and you will know your own list: reputation, the principal, the teachers, the facilities, the community around it. Demographic change sits alongside all of them, and it can move demand for school places a long way. It is also the part where planning most often falls back on anecdote, usually because good local evidence is hard to come by.
Spend an hour with one of our most experienced forecasters and demographers. You will come away with a clearer sense of what a good evidence base for school planning looks like, and how to tell the anecdotes from the factors that genuinely affect your school.
We are demographers, forecasters and planners, and we have worked alongside schools for over 30 years: state and territory education departments, systemic school networks and independent schools, on enrolment forecasting, market share, and what development and demographic change are doing to demand.
Bring your questions for Johnny, who has led much of that work. We answer as many as we can on the day, and our team follows up afterwards on any we do not get to. All registrants are sent the recording and the slides.
PRESENTED BY
Johnny Barnard
Principal Consultant, population forecasting
IN THIS SESSION
A framework for reading your own area
Population change
What is actually driving growth or decline in your area, and which age groups it reaches first.
Migration, and who arrives
Migration patterns reveal a lot about where a place is heading, and about the families who will be looking for a school in your area.
Development and density
Housing development is a focus for governments across Australia, but a gap remains between what is approved, what can be built and what is likely to be built. That gap drives the timing of growth in an area, and whether it brings school-age families.
Transport and access
How students and parents get to your school, and the journey to work for the teachers and staff you need. New rail, road and bus access changes both.
What it means for your facilities
Classrooms, portables, pools and property. What the evidence says about future demand before you commit capital, and whether the question is more places or a bigger share of your local market.
Live Q&A
Submit a question when you register, or ask on the day. We answer as many as we can in the session, and our team follows up on the rest afterwards.
Who this is for
Principals, deputy principals and business managers who are responsible for enrolments and capital planning at their school.
Network, property and infrastructure planners at state and territory education departments, school systems and networks, and individual schools, working out where the next school goes, how existing facilities are managed and resourced, and which sites are at risk. Early learning operators and local government early years teams will find the same shifts driving demand for places.
We will not get to every local area in an hour, but you will leave with a way of thinking about your own, and with pointers to where you can see how these national shifts are playing out in your catchment.
Why now
With new Census data due in mid-2027, this is a good moment to revisit the part demographics play in demand for school places.
There are two sides to that. Knowing what is coming gives you time to plan for it rather than react to it, and understanding how your community is changing often shows you where there is room to grow.
A 2026 update to the report
This session brings our 2025 report, Planning education provision in a changing Australia, up to date for 2026. The report set out how migration, falling fertility and the housing development pipeline are reshaping where families settle, and when.
A year on, we have another year of work with schools behind us and a clearer view of how differently it all plays out from one area to the next. That is what this hour is for. If you have not read the report yet, it is a good place to start.