How London school budgets will suffer under the National Funding Formula changes - London Councils

From London Councils. Clearly we need to campaign to preserve London school funding and for an increase in the total amount spent on schools so that children outside London receive fair funding.

The National Funding Formula (NFF)will remove £19 million of funding from London’s schools.

Taking this into account as well as the increased cost pressures identified by the National Audit Office, London’s schools will need to make savings of £360 million in the first year of the new national funding formula (2018/19) to balance their books. No school will gain enough funding from the NFF to compensate for increased cost pressures due to factors such as inflation, pensions and national insurance.

As around 70 per cent of a school’s budget is spent on staff salaries, funding reductions are likely to result in fewer teachers and support staff posts in schools, as well as increased class sizes.

This is significant because top quality teachers who are motivated and highly skilled are the main reason that children make progress and achieve good results in their education.

Without the right qualifications and skills, London’s children will be unable to access jobs and contribute to the national economy. Over 60 per cent of jobs in inner London require a degree and around 45 per cent of jobs in the rest of the capital require a degree.

Analysis of the NFF shows that:

• 70 per cent of schools (over 1,500) across the capital will face budget cuts.
• The impact is widespread – 802 schools in inner London and 734 schools in outer London stand to lose funding due to the NFF.
• At least one school in every London borough will experience a reduction in funding.
• 19 London boroughs are set to lose funding, with losses ranging from 0.1 per cent to 2.8 per cent.

Combining the impact of the introduction of the NFF and wider cost pressures, headteachers at London schools will have to make savings totalling £360 million in the first year of the NFF (2018/19).

The savings required are equivalent to:

• 17,142 teaching assistant posts, on an average salary of £21,000.
• 12,857 qualified teachers, on an average salary of £28,000.
• This amounts to cutting 7.5 teaching assistant posts per school or cutting 5.6 qualified teachers posts per school, given that there are 2,297 mainstream schools in London.

If the government’s proposals are brought into effect, 70 per cent of schools in the capital will face budget cuts, on top of pre-existing funding reductions. London will also see larger reductions in funding than anywhere else in the country.

This comes on top of National Audit Office figures showing that educational standards across the country could plummet as schools in England face an 8 per cent real-terms cut per pupil by 2019/20 thanks to wider cost pressures.

Taking everything into account, London’s schools will need to make savings of £360 million in the first year of the new national funding formula in order to balance their books.

But at a time when UK schools are seen as underperforming by international standards, and when businesses based in London are facing massive uncertainty about recruiting skilled staff, there is an urgent need to invest in schools in London and across the rest of the country.

London Councils' Key Asks:

• That all children receive a great education – every child in the country deserves this.
• That the government finds an additional £335 million for the schools that stand to gain through the National Funding Formula without taking money away from other schools.
• That the government revises the draft National Funding Formula to better reflect London’s needs and to avoid a decrease in educational standards.
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  Key facts about London Schools 
   
  
  
  
  
  
  

   The figure is 94% in Brent
   
  London’s schools are the best in the country
  
  
• In London 89 per cent of schools are currently judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted, the highest percentage of any region in England.
• Last year London’s schools helped pupils to achieve 60.9 per cent five A* to C GCSEs including Maths and English, the highest rate for any region and above the national average of 57.3 per cent.

London’s schools promote social mobility

• London has the highest attaining cohort of pupils on Free School Meals in the country – 48 per cent of young people on FSM in London achieved five good GCSEs as opposed to only 36.8 per cent of the same group nationally.

Recruitment and retention of teachers is a challenge in London

• Around 50 per cent of headteachers in London are approaching retirement. Schools must act now to ensure teachers in senior leadership roles are ready to become headteachers.
• Living costs are higher in London. One example of this is private sector rents, which are more than twice the national average according to the Valuation Office Agency. Schools are therefore under pressure to ensure salaries reflect this reality.

School places:

• Between 2010-2020 the school age population in London is anticipated to grow by almost 25 per cent
• 110,364 new school places will be needed in London between 2016/17 and 2021/22 to meet forecast demand. This consists of 62,934 primary places and 47,430 secondary places.
• At least £1.8 billion will be needed to provide sufficient school places in London between 2016/17 and 2021/2

 Resources on London school places and funding can be found HERE

More on the situation of schools in Brent HERE

Are academy chains harming the progress of disadvantaged pupils?

Henry Stewart looks at the latest report from the Sutton Trust. This was first published on the Local Schools Network website LINK

The Sutton Trust report Chains Effects 2015, published today, makes clear that there are serious problems with many of the academy chains: “far from providing a solution to disadvantage, a few chains may be exacerbating it”.

The government, and its supporters in the media, are likely to focus on the small number of high-performing chains that the report finds are performing better than schools overall. However these represent less than one in five of the sponsored academies that were included in the study. Even the strong results of these few chains may, as the report suggests, be explained by the fact that most are London focused and benefiting from the better performance of London schools.

The government plans to convert “inadequate” and “coasting” schools to sponsored academies. Yet this report reveals that 15% of sponsored academies covered by this report are currently rated “inadequate” by Ofsted (compared to 6% for secondary schools overall) and that no less than 44%, four out of every nine, would be classed as “coasting” according to their 2014 results.

This could be partly explained by the prior low attainment that led to these schools being converted. However the report only includes schools that had been academies for at least three years, and some for much longer. In this light it comments, in what may be an understatement, that these figures “seem quite disappointing”.

The conclusions are stark: While there are some chains demonstrating “impressive outcomes”, “a larger group of low-performing chains are achieving results that are not improving and may be harming the prospects of their disadvantaged students”.

Underperformance of the lower achieving

The most robust analysis in the report is that which compares the improvement in results in academy chains with schools that started with similar results in 2012. It is this analysis that leads the report to the conclusion that some chains are harming the performance of the most disadvantaged, and showing no capability to improve. The study split schools into five equal groups (or “quintiles”) by 2012 GCSE results.

Of the nine academy chains in the lowest quintile for results in 2012, four did significantly worse and none did significantly better than schools overall, in terms of the change in GCSE results for all pupils from 2012 to 2014. (Across all quintiles, six academy chains did significantly worse and five did significantly better than schools overall for the improvement in results for all pupils.)

 

Of the four academy chains in the lowest quintile for results in 2012, all did “significantly worse” than schools overall, in terms of the change in GCSE results for disadvantaged pupils from 2012 to 2014. (Overall, across all quintiles, nine academy chains did significantly worse and five did significantly better than schools overall for the improvement in results of disadvantaged pupils.)

 

This is a serious concern. For the most seriously “underperforming” schools, the fact they are part of an academy chain is resulting in significantly worse improvement than if they were still maintained, in the local authority sector. This is especially the case for the most disadvantaged pupils.

Will the government listen?

Those high-performing chains that are improving at a significantly faster rate deserve praise and recognition. However they are few in number. The performance of other chains is very worrying. For the most seriously “underperforming” schools, the fact they are part of an academy chain seems to be resulting in significantly worse improvement than if they were still maintained, in the local authority sector. The report is clear that action must be taken.

As the report recommends, will the DfE “act to remove academies from failing chains”? Will it put aside ideology and place those schools with whatever body is best able to help them, whether that is another chain, the local authority or a federation?

As the report recommends, will the DfE ensure chains cannot expand unless they have a track record of success? Or will they endanger the future of those schools by placing them with academy chains that are either performing at the average or underperforming?

I would not be surprised if the government’s main response to this report is to focus only on its praise for the small number of high-performing chains. If it does so, and fails to act on the reports recommendations to deal with the poorly-performing ones, then it seems it is unprepared to base its policy on the evidence and unprepared to act in the best interest of our schoolchildren.

From the Sutton Report LINK