Simon has welcomed important changes to make school funding fairer which will deliver an extra £23 million/year for North East schools by the end of the decade.
The Government is introducing the first ever national school funding formula from 2018. This will help to end the current arbitrary and unfair system, which leads to huge differences in funding for schools with minimal objective justification. Last year the ten best funded areas of England received an average grant of £6,300 per pupil, compared to just £4,200 per pupil in the ten most poorly funded areas.
At the last General Election the Conservatives promised to tackle this unfairness, and the new formula is the result. It starts from an equal baseline and then has a transparent mechanism that accounts for factors like deprivation, prior attainment, geography, schools costs and so on. The move has gained support from teachers’ leaders’ unions such as the Association of School and College Leaders and the National Association of Head Teachers.
The North East is a net winner as a region – the indicative figures supplied by the Department for Education show it will receive £23 million a year more for its schools by the time the new formula is fully in effect in 2019/20. The impact of the new formula varies by area - Durham is the biggest winner in cash terms, Hartlepool dips very slightly - but rather than look at local authorities it’s much more helpful to look at this on the basis of individual schools, as the new formula will give each school the funding it needs based on its particular pupil population.
Local schools that stand to benefit significantly from the formula include Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough (whose budget will go up £166,000 on the indicative figures) and Hillsview Academy in South Bank (up £148,000). Local primaries will also gain, like Skelton Primary School in East Cleveland, whose budget increases by £103,000 (5.4%), Highcliffe Primary in Guisborough and Hummersea Primary School in Loftus.
Simon said, “Parents on Teesside will rightly expect that their children should receive a fair level of school funding based on a transparent and objective assessment of their needs, and the Government's new formula is a welcome step towards delivering this. Most people will be surprised that such a system wasn’t introduced long ago.
“The North East as a whole stands to gain substantially from these changes and many schools in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland will see their budgets rise. For those schools that will see their funding reduce, the Government has been clear that the changes will be introduced in stages and that no school will see its per pupil funding fall by more than 3%. Ultimately this is about delivering fairness for children and I think both teaching professionals and parents will understand that.”
People who want to comment on the new formula can do so until March on the Government’s consultation website here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula2/