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13 April 2026

Tag: school financing

Land sharing: it’s going to be difficult to resist

The DfE cannot compel academies to share their land, but changes to funding agreements will make it difficult to resist Amid concerns about the shortage of pupil places at primary schools in England, the Department for Education (DfE) has introduced new provisions into the model funding agreements of academy schools. These are designed to enable […]

What should I spend my pupil premium on?

The pupil premium is a wonderfully optimistic policy. But there are a few key ingredients that will help to boost the success of disadvantaged pupils – and it’s all underpinned by excellent leadership In the past two years I have visited about 150 special, primary and secondary schools to learn about their use of the […]

It’s not unusual… to have conflicts

Properly managing conflicts of interest and related party transactions is an essential part of the proper management of a school At the end of 2014, the National Audit Office highlighted concerns about the high level of “related party transactions” entered into by academy trusts. While the report and much of the linked media coverage focused […]

Awards will inspire schools to turn around children’s lives

The whole point of the awards is to highlight successful approaches we didn’t even know existed Scientific evidence shows that well-designed prizes can be powerful drivers of behaviour change. For example, the Ansari X Prize – which offered $10 million for whoever could get a manned spacecraft into space, twice, in two weeks – prompted […]

Rewarding luck is not a formula to beat disadvantage

The Pupil Premium Awards benefit schools that had a little more talent and a lot of luck Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, when asked to report his ‘favourite equation’, offered the following: Success = talent + luck. Great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck. He illustrates this with an example from […]

What is Tristram Hunt’s private school tax plan?

Tristram Hunt declined to comment. Those words leapt out in a New Statesman article earlier this year describing how private and state schools could demolish walls between them. Andrew Adonis, Michael Gove, Anthony Seldon, even myself, all wrote articles. Tristram Hunt? He declined to comment. The shadow education secretary was rightly lampooned for his silence. […]

How does being a charity affect a school?

The Education Secretary wants private schools to earn their right be considered a charity. But many state schools are also charities, which provides tax benefits in return for regulatory restrictions Each state-funded academy is formed as an exempt charitable company, which means although it is a charity, it is not registered with the Charity Commission. […]

State boarding schools: Finance: ‘Costs have to be split’

All state boarding schools have two sets of accounts: the standard accounts of any state day school and, separately, the accounts of all expenditure and money received for boarding. The cost of heating and lighting of the school buildings appears in one set; the parallel expenditure for heating and lighting a boarding house appears in […]