Posts Tagged ‘School Funding’
Review into school building suggests buildings not ‘transformational’. So why do they care so much about them at Eton?
It has been fascinating to see, in the comments following the publication of the James Review into school capital funding, how many people believe that school buildings can’t have a transformational effect on children or impact on educational attainment. I wonder why it is then that the parents at schools like Eton, alma mater of […]
James Review on School Buildings makes some good points but leaves unanswered questions
The James Review in to capital spending on schools was slipped out to very little fanfare yesterday, on the last day of term. I wonder why? It could be that the whole matter of school buildings is of little real interest to the media, but given the furore over the cancellation of BSF, you would […]
How do we decide if we ‘need’ a new school
Published in Guardian Education today How should we decide what constitutes ‘need’ for a new school? This, I predict, will be one of the most furiously contested issues of the next few years. Giving any willing group the chance to set up a school may sound appealing on paper, but the devil will be in […]
The row about BSF has obscured the real story on school capital funding
Much of the attention of the coalition governments funding of English maintained schools has focussed on the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. Almost no attention has been focussed on another aspect of capital funding that will affect all schools – that of Devolved Capital Funding. This is the annual allocation to […]
A national funding formula would make academy status irrelevent for many schools
Originally posted on the Local Schools Network Michael Gove must be getting desperate. His latest letter to chairs of governors practically begs schools, whether good bad or indifferent, to consider academy status. Presumably this is because so few of the initial 1900 potential converts finally came good. But why would we now? If every school […]
When it comes to school funding, read the small print not the spin
Five months ago I wrote this column for Guardian Education and was chided by various friends and colleagues for being cynical about the overblown promise of a pupil premium and the effect it might have on schools in a risky, fluid school funding environment. Having followed the various, often conflicting versions of where school budgets […]
Unaccountable bureaucrats to run new academies and ‘free’ schools
There has been a lot of loose talk in the media about academies receiving their funding directly from the Secretary of State for Education. Though this was true under the last government it is no longer the case. That responsibility has now been transferred the Young People’s Learning Agency for England, otherwise known as the […]
Policy on the back of an envelope
Three cheers for Mary Gibson, the Islington head whose robust defence of her school’s community school status made headlines in her local paper earlier this month. She has taught in the North London borough of Islington for 40 years, runs an outstanding school, was awarded an MBE recently and is defiant: ’This school will become […]
How much extra money will academies really get?
There is currently considerable confusion in relation to the funding that schools that become academies under the current bill before parliament will receive compared to what they currently receive. This confusion seems partly the result of comparisons with what happened when the Conservatives were last in power and Grant-Maintained schools were considerably advantaged both in […]
Pupil premiums – good in theory but how will they work?
The Liberal Democrats and the Tories are proposing a pupil premium. But in a new report the Institute for Fiscal Studies casts doubt on how effective it will be in significantly reducing the educational achievement gap between children from rich and poor backgrounds.The report concludes that the cuts required elsewhere in school budgets might outweigh […]
