school funding | Schools Week

School budgets ‘on a knife edge’ due to soaring supply staff costs

Schools are “on a knife edge” as the mounting costs of supply staff parachuted in to replace isolating teachers could leave them out of cash “by Christmas”. A survey from the NAHT school leaders’ union, based on more than 2,000 responses, has found schools are spending on average £2,454 more on supply staff than they […]

Schools take £900m Covid hit, but few get cash help

New figures show that the cost of Covid safety measures for schools across England has soared to almost £400 million. And in a “double whammy” on school budgets, missed income opportunities following the pandemic have now surpassed £500 million. Schools need the government to make good these unanticipated but necessary costs in order to protect […]

Pay rise costs take sheen off extra funding

School funding will still be six per cent lower than it was in 2010 after cash swallowed up by rising salaries is taken into account, a new study has found. The government has promised to pump an extra £7.1 billion into the schools budget by 2023, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said “near […]

Four things we learned from the EPI’s analysis of 2021-22 school funding allocations

Efforts to “level-up” school funding in England will benefit better-off pupils more than their poorer peers, according to new analysis by the Education Policy Institute. The think tank has published analysis of school funding allocations for 2021-22. The government is now in its third year of allocating funding to councils based on its new national […]

Minimum secondary school per-pupil funding to rise to £5,150

Secondary schools will receive at least £5,150 for each pupil from 2021, the government has announced. Ministers have set out the minimum funding levels for schools that will apply under the second year of their three-year funding settlement. Schools in inner London are set for the lowest increase (2.3 per cent), while schools in the […]

DfE paid £490k to rebroker three failing Steiner schools

The government paid out almost half a million pounds in grant funding to rebroker three failing Steiner schools, new data shows. Steiner free schools in Bristol, Exeter and Frome were moved to the Avanti Schools Trust last year after all three were placed into special measures by Ofsted. The schools are now called Avanti Gardens […]

Ten things we learned from Ofsted’s school funding study

Ofsted has finally published its long-awaited research into the impact of funding pressures on schools. The study was not supposed to be released until a few weeks’ time. But the watchdog accidentally published a blog by chief inspector Amanda Spielman about it earlier this week, leading to widespread media coverage and criticism of her comments […]

School staff should look after ‘every penny like their own’, says academy trust CEO

School staff should treat “every penny” of funding as if it was their own and apply the same “discipline” to financial management as they do to improving educational performance, an academy trust CEO has said. Tes reported earlier this week that the David Ross Education Trust has asked its schools to consider using cover supervisors […]

Head claims DfE’s new funding website doesn’t add up

A leading headteacher has criticised the government’s new school funding website for displaying figures for his school that are hundreds of thousands of pounds higher than the sum he will actually receive. The Department for Education launched a new online tool last week that allows anyone to find out how much money their local school […]