Free School Meals and teacher vacancies

Posted on July 21, 2023 by John Howson

Now that the summer term has ended it’s time to take our annual look at classroom teacher turnover by level of free school meals (FSM) in schools. Last year, in 2022, this blog looked at turnover in one shire county Teacher vacancies and Free School Meals | John Howson (wordpress.com) so, I thought I would return to look at the same county for the period 1^st January 2023 to 21^st July 2023. TeachVac allows that real time look at what is happening.

Last year the outcome of the research was:

January to July 2022

FSM percentage	Number of Schools	Recorded vacancies	Vacancies per school
0-9.9%	18	359	20.0
10-20%	14	387	27.6
20%+	6	281	46.0

Source: TeachVac

For January to July 2023

FSM percentage	Number of Schools	Recorded vacancies	Vacancies per school
0-9.9%	12	213	17.75
10-20%	19	474	25.00
20%+	9	221	24.50

Source: TeachVac

This is recognized to be a very crude measure, partly because schools are of different sizes and also because of the fact that new schools may be appointing staff for the first time. What, however, is interesting is the fact that the cost of living crisis, even in a shire county in the south of England, may have resulted in a decrease in schools in the group of schools with the lowest FSM percentages. The remaining schools in this group has seen the recorded vacancies per school fall compared with the same period in 2022.

There has also been a significant fall in vacancies per school among the highest group, where vacancies per school have nearly halved. Is this down to better vacancy management and cost control as schools now recognize that for some subjects it is pointless just repeatedly advertising for a teacher? Has the profile of this group of schools also changed, as three more schools have joined the group?

If the 14-18 school is removed from the table, the vacancy per school for the 20%+ FSM group increases to 26.9 this year. Still a big improvement on 2022, but maintaining the profile of higher percentage of FSM pupil school experiencing more vacancies and either higher turnover or more difficulties in filling posts than schools with lower FSM percentages.

Many of the schools within the shire county boundary are in one large local MAT that now takes recruitment seriously, so it may well be that the decrease in vacancies recorded, from 1,027 to 908, is as a result of better vacancy management, especially since pupil numbers have been on the increase over the two years.

Across all the schools the most advertised subjects were:

Science 146 recorded advertisements

Mathematics 115 recorded advertisements

Design & Technology 113 recorded advertisements – including one school with 22 recorded advertisements in this subject

English 104 recorded advertisements

In the humanities, there were 56 recorded advertisements for teachers of geography, but only 21 for teachers of history. 15 schools had no recorded advertisement for a teacher of history.

So, in 2023 the link between FSM and teacher turnover is weaker in this geographical area than it was in 2022. This seems to be down to a combination of increased percentages of FSM, as the cost of living crisis increases, and perhaps a better handle on recruitment in one of the large MATs. How to disseminate the message across all schools that vacancy management matters is an interesting question? Is there a role for the Schools’ Forum or the regional Director?

School Uniforms: Good idea or extra cost burden?

Posted on August 14, 2022 by John Howson

This September, schools will have had to update their websites to take account of the Education (Guidance about costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021. This was a Private Members Bill, passed last year. The provisions, although requiring more work from schools, are no doubt timely for parents where schools have taken the new Act’s sentiment and coupled it with dealing with the effects of the present cost of living crisis.

In one location I know well, one academy is offering a free blazer to every child entering Year 7. However, another academy that is changing its name this September is requiring all pupils to have the full new uniform. Blazer, tie and PE T-shirt must be purchased from the nominated supplier. For those without access to the internet, the supplier’s shop is probably two bus rides away across town. Although a faith school, the school’s website doesn’t make any obvious reference to assistance, especially for families with more than one child at the school: not much evidence of Christian Charity, although the same school has support for Ukrainian refugees.

The need for charity to start at home is emphasised by the fact that many local authorities have scrapped grants for uniforms that were once commonplace. Authorities can still make grants of up to £300, but few can afford to do so.

As a twin, I well recall the costs of kitting out two boys for secondary school at the same time. That summer, our holiday was with relatives, perhaps to save for the cost of uniforms plus accessories.

One school site I viewed recently even required a calculator priced at £16.99. no doubt it is useful for every pupil to use the same one; but it does erode the concept of ‘free education’, especially when the school’s accounts for 2021 revealed a balance of over £1 million pounds, partly helped by the delay in constructing new facilities. Might this be a case of my old bugbear, transferring revenue into capital and expecting parents to make up the deficit?

Of even more concern than the cost of school unforms to many families in rural areas is the cost of actually reaching school each day, especially if the school is just under the three-mile limit for free transport or the child is aged 16-18. The situation is compounded where there is now no local bus service or convenient rail station.

For any young person wanting to attend a further education college or be faced with a mandatory change of school in an 11-16 plus sixth form set-up, the cost can be serious. Whether it is enough to put-off some young people from studying expensive courses, where students required to purchase expensive equipment to take the course, we just don’t know.

Free school meals have received a lot of publicity, the other costs to families associated with schools, especially in rural area, where wages are often lower than the average, and some workers must live in tied-accommodation, has received less consideration. Swop shops and second-hand stores may help, but governing bosies should be mindful of the costs of attending their schools, especially for families where several children are attending at the same time. And, then there is the in-year costs to consider, such as school trips.

Dead money?

Posted on April 19, 2022 by John Howson

The DfE has published some research into the funds held by Trusts for the year 2020/21. As academies and Trusts report their finances on an academic year basis, these statistics cover the period from September 2020 to August 2021. Academy trust revenue reserves 2020 to 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The main findings are summed up in the following two paragraphs from Page 4 of this short report.

Trusts average reserves – In 2020/21 average revenue reserves across academy trusts were £1.48 million, compared to £1.15 million in 2019/20, an increase of 29%. In 2020/21 the average surplus balance was £1.53 million, compared to £1.22 million in 2019/20, an increase of 26%. The average deficit balance in 2020/21 was at £318,000, compared to £376,000 in 2019/20, a decrease of 15.5%

Reserves across the sector – The 2020/21 data shows the total cumulative surplus of trusts with positive reserves was £3.96 billion. Trusts in a cumulative deficit had a total deficit of £22.24 million. In 2019/20 the total cumulative surplus was £3.17 billion against a total cumulative deficit of £42.1 million.

So nearly 4 billion pounds was tied up in reserves sitting in academy trusts waiting to be spent by August 2021. What’s more the pandemic has resulted in more cash in reserves in the average academy trust than in the previous year. Indeed, the average increase is a whopping by 29% in one year.

So, a sector that sometimes loudly complains it is short of cash managed to put quite a bit away in reserves for a rainy day. One wonders what sort of rainy day that would be? One where teachers earn a minimum of £30,000 and where soaring utility costs must be financed from reserves not in-year revenue? Perhaps educating children at home is more cost effective for schools than having them on-site.

Where were the savings made? This ad-hoc set of statistics doesn’t allow for an answer to that question. But, presumably, supply cover and less wear and tear on school premises, plus a slowdown in construction of new build and refurbishment costs anticipated to be spent during the year but for the pandemic, may have accounted for a large amount of the cash going into reserves?

There should have been some savings on recruitment costs, but, as many trusts have subscriptions with the tes and other job sites any reduction in vacancies would not necessarily result in a saving in costs compared to paying for each recruitment round individually.

As we are now half-way through the 2021-2022 academies financial year, it should be possible for the government to have sight of what has been happening since September. Will this be the year reserves start reducing in size or will the £4 billion level be reached or even exceeded?

I always maintain that revenue funding should be spent on the children in the schools at the time when it is received and not stashed away in reserves. However, some provision for depreciation of equipment and eventual replacement is prudent. Delving into these numbers in more detail should allow for consideration of whether there are economies of scale with larger trusts or the opposite. From that perspective, the data here allows for more questions than it provides answers.

Idle cash is not not useful cash?

Posted on July 27, 2018 by John Howson

Is holding some £2.4 billion pounds of public money in reserves a good use of our money? The DfE revealed that in August 2017 academies and their Trusts were holding this sum in reserves against committed and potential future needs. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/728768/Academy_revenue_reserves_2016_to_2017.pdf.

The position seems to have worsened over the most recent period, as the DfE note states that: ‘This is a decrease of 0.6 percentage points from 94.5% of trusts in 2015/16. 95.7% of academies (6,715) were in trusts that were in surplus or breaking even at the end of 2016/17’. Despite noting that figures could not be provided at an individual school level, the DfE does state that:’ Smaller trusts are more likely to have a deficit. This means that only 4.3% of academies (300) were in trusts that were in deficit at the end of 2016/17.’ Of course it is possible for some schools in a Trust to have positive balances and others to have a deficit. Following Lord Agnew’s recent letter to auditors of academies and Trusts, it is perfectly possible to transfer funds between schools in this situation, something not possible in the maintained sector.

The note doesn’t seem to consider whether benchmarks for levels of reserves are appropriate for academies and MATs? In the past 5% of turnover was considered sufficient for secondary schools and 8% for primary schools to hold as reserves. Even allowing for central costs, MATs should not be holding significant amount sin reserves.

Earlier this week, I raised concerns with Oxfordshire’s the accounting for positive balances held by maintained schools and schools with deficits. I have the same concern about the use of a table showing ‘net’ reserves in the DfE’s note. Any lay person looking at the table and associated text might think that the net position was because deficits could be offset against surpluses. As noted, that is possible at the level of the schools within an individual Trust, but not between schools in different Trust as far as I am aware. For MATs the table really needs to be split into two sections; deficits that can be covered within a MAT and MATs where all schools are in deficit or stand-alone academies where there is no current provision for covering the deficit other than by reducing expenditure within the academy to a point where the deficit is eliminated.

The STRB might be helped to be made aware of any regional trends in schools with deficits that might relate to pay decisions. The alternative is that schools and MATs with deficits are randomly spread around the country and are the result of poor leadership rather than the consequence of any policy decision.

Although the Command Paper on Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU (Cm 9674) contains a section on rights to residence of EU citizens, the DfE could usefully publish a paper on how school budgets, including those of academies might be affected, should a percentage of EU citizens decide to return home, possibly because of their jobs transferring to another EU country, after March 2019 and Brexit.

Some five per cent of pupils in Oxfordshire’s schools have EU citizenship of a member state of than the UK. Some 14 schools, mostly in and around Oxford has more than 10% of such pupils at the last count. Any significant withdrawal might put their finance sunder some strain.

More or less local democracy in our school system: who cares?

Posted on July 12, 2018 by John Howson

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at Westminster has published a short and interesting Report into ‘Converting Schools to Academies’. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/697/69702.htm

There is little to disagree with in the Report. The process has been expensive and has caused problems with the remaining statutory duties of local authorities. The Committee cited pupil place planning as an issue, but could have included SEND issues and the education of children taken into care. They could have also realised that Free Schools and the dalliance with the 14-18 sector that brought us UTCs and Studio Schools also contributed to the problems with pupil place planning.

Oxfordshire is one of the few, (perhaps the only?) local authority to require a regional school commissioner to appear before its Education Scrutiny Committee each year to give an account of progress of academies within his remit. The answers to the Scrutiny Committee’s questions have revealed a weak and probably largely ineffectual system for improving school performance among academies. The PAC were right to comment on the need for better links with the Education and Skills Funding Council and the RSCs.

Of interest to Oxfordshire was the PACs comments about small rural schools and academies. Oxfordshire has a large number of small rural primary schools that are much loved by the county. The PAC said

Small rural schools, particularly primary schools, can face particular difficulties in finding suitable sponsors. Low pupil numbers may make rural schools financially unviable and their geographical isolation can make it more difficult for multi-academy trusts to provide support. The Department told us that, since 2010, 1,379 rural primary schools had registered an interest in becoming an academy. Of those, 984 had gone on to apply to become an academy, including 262 that were small rural primary schools.

The PAC asked what, particularly for small rural schools, the barriers were to becoming academies and how the barriers could be addressed. The Department told us that, in principle, the opportunity presented by a joining multi-academy trust should be greater for a smaller school than a larger one, because there was the potential to achieve more economies of scale.

One wonders why, if the point on economies of scale is true, it is secondary schools that have rushed to become academies while these small primary schools have held back, even in many diocese where they already had links outside of the local authority. It may be that under the 2010 Act many original converters became stand-alone academies and only now are they joining together into multi academy trusts.

This means that there are now three separate governance systems for our schools, often running alongside each other; maintained schools, mostly primary schools; standalone academies, mostly secondary schools and Trusts that can be either primary, secondary or a mixture of both with a smattering of all-through schools as well.

These separate systems are expensive to operate and can cause problems as the PAC Report demonstrated. The DfE will, at some point, have to think how to re-join the parts into a whole. For me, one key question with be the place of local democratic accountability in the system. Do we want an NHS style school system with little local accountability or one more akin to what there was between 1944 and the early 2000s, with a significant role for a democratically elected local body aligned to the rest of local government? Regular readers of this blog will know where I stand.

How to run a National School

Posted on June 24, 2018 by John Howson

Recently Lord Agnew, the PUS for the School System wrote to firms that audit academies and their Trusts/Committees. Now a letter from a Minister carries with it both political and administrative weight when compared to one from a civil servant writing on behalf of their political masters. Lord Agnew’s letter can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-from-lord-theodore-agnew-to-academy-trust-auditors

In the letter, , in the words of the DfE website, Lord Agnew ‘shares across the audit sector several key points that will help boards govern more effectively and make best use of the freedoms they have.’

So what are the key points in the letter? General Annual Grant (GAG) pooling is the first point specified.

Lord Agnew reminds the auditors that ‘The opportunity to pool GAG is particularly valuable, in particular to simplify the provision of support to weaker schools in a MAT until they can grow their pupil numbers. It is worth remembering that a MAT is a single financial entity.’

This isn’t a power generally available to local authorities in relation to maintained schools and typifies the different power arrangements between schools in MAT/MACs and those schools still in the maintained sector. Interestingly, he doesn’t ask the auditors for a time limit on taking money away from some schools to support others. Auditors might like to consider whether this cross-subsidy between schools should really be open-ended or in need for regular justification, since Regional School Commissioners seem to differ in their approach to such weak schools. Auditors can provide helpful national guidance by acting in concert on this point.

By the time Lord Agnew has reached Auditors’ management letters, he is telling audit firms that, ‘We would like to see the recommendations made by auditors being implemented in a timely manner with scrutiny at board level to ensure that this is the case.’ Now whether or not he sees it as a duty on the auditors to see that the contents of these letters are addressed is an interesting question. Of course, if the issue is really serious, then the auditors should quality the accounts. However, this is something auditors are generally reluctant to do, even though the DfE itself isn’t unfamiliar with the process in terms of its own accounts and their relationship with the academy sector.

Lord Agnew also hope his letter will open up debate between the auditors and their clients. His list of Operational Challenges is interesting. These include,

Are your clients using a standard employment contract for all teaching staff so that they can be cross deployed to different schools?
Are they using the same exam boards in all their schools to enable cross school marking and also to optimise the point above?
Do they have a central electronic purchase order system to ensure strong controls on expenditure?
Do they have a central bank account that simplifies bank reconciliations and ensures that there is constant, easy visibility of the cash position?
Are they benchmarking their supply costs and if over a number of years the level is constant have they considered employing permanent staff to fill some of this requirement thereby improving the quality and removing agency charges?
Are they accessing the Department’s procurement arrangements if they are providing better value than they can achieve on their own?

The first of these is highly interesting in the sense of moving back to controlling the lives of teachers. When I joined Haringey, in 1971, my contract specified a school but added that the council had the right to move me to another school. With all schools in the Authority in a tight geographical area this wouldn’t have had much to concern me, even if was in use, which by then it wasn’t. With MATs/MACs spread across large areas, it might be helpful to understand whether this policy, advocated by the DfE, is having any effects on recruitment and retention of teachers both at classroom level and, more specifically, in terms of promotion to middle leadership if it means a house move to a different area?

If these powers are to be enforced on academies, then presumably they are both important and useful for our school system. In that case, why aren’t local authorities allowed to create them for maintained schools and what is the future for stand-alone academies?

Perhaps Lord Agnew will write to Directors of Children’s Services explaining why these operational challenges don’t matter in the remaining maintained schools?

‘intervene fast… take the serious action necessary’. Promises

Posted on June 12, 2018 by John Howson

Why has the Regional School Commissioner for North West London and the South Central Region not issued any warning notices to any school about poor performance since the end of 2016? The updated DfE list of such notice published earlier this week https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/list-of-letters-to-academy-trusts-about-poor-performance reveals that the last notice issued was in December 2016 and that was to a school issued a pre-warning notice at the start of that year. Indeed, all the schools issued with notices in 2016/17 had previously received an earlier letter, meaning no new school in the region has been added to the list since early 2016.

Is the Office of the RSC not communicating to the DfE or has the RSC decided that the Secretary of State’s words in his speech to the NGA that ‘on those rare occasions when a school is failing – be in no doubt – we will intervene fast and we will take the serious action necessary’ doesn’t apply in the North West London and the South Central Region?

It cannot be that there are no Inadequate schools within the region, although there may not be many. The RSC appears also never to have issued any sort of notice to a school run by any of the faith groups in his region. This may explain why the school I highlighted in my previous blog post hasn’t received any overt indication of concern about performance, except from Ofsted when it declared it Inadequate in the spring of 2017 and received expressions of further concerns in the two follow-up s8 monitoring reports.

Is the RSC for the North West London and the South Central Region trying a new policy, at variance with the words of the Secretary of State, by seeking to improve schools beyond the glare of publicity? Interestingly, the figures for number of notices issued by the North West London and the South Central Region are also matched by some other regions that have also not published any notices in 2017/18, whereas the RSC for the South West has issued five of the 12 notices in 2017/18.

There are clearly Inadequate academies, as rated by Ofsted, in the regions where no notices have been published in 2017/18 as well as previously rated Inadequate schools where progress to return to an effective standard of education has been unsatisfactory. How are RSCs handling these schools now the notices seem to have fallen out of fashion? How will the Secretary of State’s promise to intervene fast be acted upon if the general public do not know what action is being taken by an RSC?

The Secretary of State has also promised more openness from Headteacher Boards and their minutes, so that is one possible way forward. Local politicians might also like to call RSCs before their Education Scrutiny Committee to given an account of how the RSC’s Office is raising standards in their local area among the academies and their Trusts. Oxfordshire’s Education Scrutiny Committee has been holding such meetings for the past three years with the RSC or their Office. Sadly, the ESFC have yet to agree to such a meeting despite two academies being in financial special measures for more than two years.

Does local democratic control matter in education?

Posted on August 9, 2017 by John Howson

How far has the education map of England become a picture of two nations growing apart? There are many different ways in which you can consider that question. One is to look at the governance structure of state funded schools. How many are still maintained schools of the various types largely linked to the 1944 Education Act and how many are now the product of the Ball/Gove academy revolution? Among selective schools the answer is that almost all are academies; only 23 remain as maintained schools and 10 of these are in Kent. At the other end of the spectrum, London is the only region where free schools, UTCs and studio schools comprise more than 10% of the total of secondary schools and even there it is still only 11%. This is despite the fact that London has probably seem the greatest demand for new secondary school places since 2010. In the North East and East Midlands areas, just four per cent of secondary schools fall into the category of these new types of nationally administered schools free from local democratic oversight.

However, academies are a group have become the dominant governance form for secondary schools, accounting for almost two out of three secondary schools in England. Nevertheless, the percentage is still lower in the north of England and, perhaps more surprisingly, in London and especially Inner London, where 81 of the 185 secondary schools are still local authority maintained comprehensives than in the rest of England.

Of course, just counting schools is a somewhat imprecise measure, since schools do differ in size from small 11-16 schools to large 2,000+ 11-18 or all-through schools. The same is true in the primary sector, where there as some very large schools coping with recent pupil growth, but still many small schools in rural areas. The percentage of schools that are academies or free schools differs from the secondary sector in some regions.

GO REGION	PRIMARY ACADEMIES/FREE SCHOOLS	ALL PRIMARY	% ACADEMIES/FREE SCHOOLS
SW	632	1870	34%
EM	454	1635	28%
YH	466	1785	26%
WM	437	1776	25%
EE	485	1993	24%
L	363	1816	20%
SE	507	2598	20%
NE	155	861	18%
NW	249	2452	10%
ALL SCHOOLS	3748	16786	22%

However, there are fewer primary academies across much of the north of England and in London. The preponderance of Conservative controlled county councils in the south West many account for the relatively high percentage of primary academies in that regional, although it is still only around one in three primary schools, much lower than the percentage in the secondary sector.

As a Lib Dem politician, I wonder whether it is worth testing a campaign in the South West along the lines of ‘return our schools to community democratic oversight’. The membership has never seemingly taken to academies and control from Westminster in the manner that Lib Dem spokespeople and Ministers seem to have done. I am not sure where the present spokesperson stands on this issue?

Such a campaign might also highlight that there is no way back for schools entering MATs. The government may remove them to another MAT and MATs may voluntarily give up or even close a school, but neither the community not the local governors can seemingly force the trustees, those with the real power in a MAT, do so. Like much of the NHS, this is a denial of local democratic involvement in a key public service.

There is, however, one gain from the academy programme, the 140 academies that are selective schools can have their status changed to non-selective schools much more easily than when they were still maintained schools.

Does democracy matter?

Posted on January 19, 2017 by John Howson

The evidence published today by the DfE on achievements by some schools within some academy groups https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/multi-academy-trust-performance-measures-2015-to-2016 is of course interesting, even with the caveats surrounding it.

However, as academies move from novelty innovation to mainstream feature of our school system there are substantial questions to be asked about their impact on the education scene across England. The most fundamental question, and one that both the two main political parties have always avoided, is whether or not local democratic involvement in education is helpful or a waste of time and money? Regular readers of this blog will know where I stand: firmly in the localism court.

Over the past year, since the publication of the White Paper in March, with its view of a fully academised system, to the recent announcement of a role for local authorities as envisaged in the funding of SEN (discussed in the previous post) there seems to have been some change of thinking. Should we consider Multi-Academy Trusts as playing a similar role to the diocese under the former system and academies as a new form of national school, but not very dissimilar to the existing voluntary aided sector.

The real question is whether there are to be two parallel but separate schools systems, one national one more local, but both funded nationally or should there be a recognition that some facets of schools are best handled locally for all schools. A move to reassure councils that in-year admissions were to return to them for all schools with associated funding might be a useful signal of the direction of travel. A second would be to require MATs to have a local authority representative as a trustee. A third might be to break up the role of director of Children’s Services back into a social work role and plus a separate education role. This would certainly help with creating career routes for professionals from both backgrounds.

Personally, I would also like to ensure there aren’t diseconomies of scale that can result when MATs are responsible for schools in many different geographical areas. The advantage of working with local authorities for the DfE is that Regional School Commissioners could be located within the Education Funding Agency and act as Territorial Principals used to do in the days when schooling was a partnership between central and local government. Local Education Scrutiny Committees could be widened to include more than just governor and faith group representatives to encompass the different interest groups, much as former Education Committees used to do before Cabinet government was invented.

What is clear is that the present muddle in the governance of schooling won’t help ensure the improvement of all schools to reach new high standards Britain will need to compete in a world where we have chosen to ‘go it alone’ and break with our continental neighbours. At least the return of FE & HE to the DfE means there is one department at Westminster with responsibility of the whole of education again. But, responsibility doesn’t mean taking operational control, nor does it mean a fully market-based system with no local democratic involvement.

Oasis close an academy in Kent

Posted on February 17, 2015 by John Howson

Hextable Academy in Swanley is to close because of falling rolls. Just when you thought schools needed to expand the Oasis Academy chain has decided to close Hextable Academy in Swanley. The 11-18 school has just fewer than 500 students according to government figures, but could accommodate 1,000 pupils. Those parents and their offspring waiting to hear about 2015 admissions in a fortnight’s time will be especially annoyed, as will the pupils kept at the school to complete their examination courses if teachers decide to quit ahead of the closure. Having worked in a college during a period of run-down prior to closure I know from first experience how little fun such a situation can be for both staff and students. The Academy Trust has at least apparently offered to pay for the new uniform of pupil relocated to another school.

Questions will need to be asked about the future of the site. It would be short-sighted to lose the school from education use if pupil numbers will increase over the next few years. Indeed, one wonders whether it might have been possible to save the school by turning it into a 5-18 all-through school by adding a primary department.

Kent County Council, the local authority, is in something of a difficult situation. They retain the legal responsibility for ensuring an education for all children but have no control over admission numbers in academies and could not have vetoed the decision to shut this school. I hope they will send Oasis a bill for all the extra work required of officers in placing the pupils requiring a new school because of the closure. It would be unfair to expect the council taxpayers of the county to foot the bill either for finding new schools or for any extra travel costs resulting from pupils having to change schools.

Hopefully, the academy chain discussed this closure with both the Education Funding Agency and their Regional Commissioner and explored whether it was worth keeping the school open with additional grant funding until pupil numbers increased again.

This episode, along with the Cuckoo Hall Academy Trust revelations chronicled in a previous post confirm my belief that the next government must sort out governance arrangements once and for all so that there is an overall body responsible for place planning and the effective use of resources across the school estate. I would like it to be the role of local authorities, but it doesn’t have to be if the government at Westminster decides otherwise. But, the present muddle cannot be allowed to last. Unstitching the grant payment for pupils that transfer to secondary schools that are not academies and operate on a different financial year will be just one more headache for officers to deal with.

One thing the DfE and EFA along with the regional commissioners must now do is set a timetable for academies and free school to notify the authorities each year if they are considering closure because of lack of numbers, or indeed for any other foreseeable reason.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: academy chain