A COUNTY headteacher has written to the Government in support of an invoice demanding money ‘owed’ to ‘lower-funded schools’.
Natalie Waters, at Droitwich Spa High School and Sixth Form Centre, is one of 32 county representatives sending a letter to the Chancellor Phillip Hammond asking for fairer funding for their schools.
The letter is in support of the Worth Less? campaign, a group of schools and academies fighting for adequate school funding which now represents approximately 5,500 schools and 3.5million families.
After matching their own average funding and setting it against the London borough of Westminster, the group provided the invoice to the Treasury and Department for Education for £124,847,660 which covers the ‘shortfall in the money that county schools should be receiving’.
Despite the introduction of a much-needed new National Funding Formula, which is set for April 2018, the group’s analysis of Department of Education (DfE) statistics has shown ‘vast funding differentials will persist between the lowest funded authorities and those which are adequately funded’.
Mrs Waters wrote: “Under the new funding formula many of our schools will continue to receive at least 50 per cent less money than an identically-sized school in London.
“At times, this rises to a staggering 70 per cent.
“The difference between Worth Less? schools (the total funding received by schools in 32 counties) and Westminster (the same number of students funded at the Westminster per-pupil average) is in excess of £3.5bn.
“This gives an idea of how unfairly our schools and students are being treated.
“We know there isn’t a bottomless pit of money but the current state of our budgets are unacceptable, as are the funding differences children in our schools face.
“The new cabinet and new Secretary of State for Education should act in the best interests of all schools and families, not just the few.”
Mrs Waters said schools are increasingly reliant on contributions from parents and using funds for disadvantaged pupils to plug gaps in their budgets.
She said schools needed to be given the same ‘tools’ to deliver as other better-funded parts of the country as children all sat the same examinations and were judged by the same Ofsted criteria.
Calling the campaign’s calculations ‘thoroughly misleading’, a DfE spokesperson said they: “Ignore the fact that under our national funding formula, funding is based on the needs and characteristics of each individual school.
“We are investing an additional £1.3billion in school funding, over and above existing plans, with core schools funding rising from almost £41billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion in 2019-20.
“There are no cuts in funding. Every school will see an increase in funding through the formula from this year, and in 2019-20 all secondary schools will attract at least £4,800 per pupil, and all primary schools will attract at least £3,500 per pupil.”
