Last Tuesday (16th October), Cheshire East Conservative Councillors Jos Saunders and Nicky Wylie met with David Waugh, the Head Teacher of Poynton High School to discuss the latest news around school funding.
Schools across England have welcomed news from Government that every Secondary School will receive a minimum of £5,000 per pupil next year whilst Primary Schools will receive a minimum of £4,000 from 2021/22. This is encouraging and follows the Prime Minister’s announcement in August that the budget for schools and pupils with High Needs will be increased by a total of £14 billion over 3 years.
Headteacher David Waugh told Jos and Nicky that whilst he welcomes the news, schools still face challenges. Poynton High School will receive an increase of 4.9% per pupil in the main school, but continues to face the challenges rising staff and pension costs as a result of Cheshire East Schools historically being amongst the lowest funded across England - known as the F40 Group. A situation that has persisted since the late 1980’s!
Poynton High School is one of the highest achieving schools in Cheshire East and has had year on year success in student outcomes and progression. The introduction of both the increase in baseline funding and the introduction of a three year financial settlement will bring important stability into the school’s future planning.
As the news of this additional funding is being carefully considered by schools, Government is also consulting on how a mandatory minimum rate ‘per pupil’ can be assured even where the National Funding Formula (when applied across a whole school) results is a lower funding rate per pupil. This is a particular problem for smaller and rural schools and the Government intends that where this occurs, pupils will receive ‘top-up’ funding to ensure that every pupil receives at least the mandatory minimum rates described above.
Jos Saunders further explained; “At the Cheshire East School Forum last week it was confirmed that the Council has responded in full to this important Consultation which ends this week. We welcome the introduction of “mandatory minimum per pupil funding” but must emphasise that the DfE must ensure that councils receive sufficient overall funding, to provide the ‘top-ups’ for achieving minimum funding levels”. “These are important steps in the right direction but the issue of fairer funding for our schools is still not resolved. Our residents can be assured that we will continue to lobby Government wherever necessary and fight for improved funding for all children and young people across Cheshire East.”
(Photo: Mr David Waugh: Headteacher Poynton High School and Cllrs Jos Saunders and Nicky Wylie 15th October 2019)
