Fee-paying schools in Oxfordshire have reported a rise in the number of pupils -- at the same time as those in the county's state schools are falling.
An ageing population and soaring house prices have been blamed for the fact that state school rolls have dropped by 900 in the past year to about 82,000.
Numbers at independent schools in Oxfordshire have risen by 2.8 per cent.
David Richardson, of the Independent Schools' Association, which includes 34 schools in the county with 13,600 pupils, said: "I think increasingly affluent people in the county are looking for achievement in schools, good exam results, smaller class sizes and a better range of extra-curricular activities."
County council leader Keith Mitchell said he was at a loss to explain where "the missing pupils" had gone.
He said: "There has been a significant reduction. One possible explanation is that it is linked to the housing situation in Oxfordshire, which has meant that there are fewer younger families moving into the area."
Berinsfield Primary School headteacher Anjie Knight said the number of pupils had fallen from a peak of 600 in the 1970s to 245 today.
She said: "We used to have quite a lot of families with young children in the village after the war, but now it's quite elderly."
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