Tag Archives: national funding formula

No High Needs Block data in NFF announcement

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Yesterday, the DfE announced the National Funding Formula (NFF) for 2026/27 The national funding formula for schools The formula covers schools and local authority delivered central services

Unlike last year, there is no section on the High Needs Block that deals with SEND funding. The details will be announced later, at some unspecified time. One other small change seems to be in the calculation of the sparsity index, where the footnote from the 2025/26 NFF document seems to be missing from the main document this year.

Last year, there as a footnote that stated in a footnote on page 26 – paragraphs were not numbered last year – that “6 A compatible school means one of the relevant phases which a pupil could attend. Selective grammar schools are not considered when identifying the second nearest compatible school, but faith schools are included.”

This year, paragraph 25 states that “Eligibility for sparsity funding depends on the distance the pupils living closest to the school would have to travel to their next nearest compatible school, and the average number of pupils per year group.”  However, there is no comment about what is a compatible school.

So, no change, apart from the lack of a definition of a ‘compatible school’. This footnote has now been relocated to the Technical Manual, and appears as footnote 9 on page 19 of the manual. Schools block national funding formula 2026 to 2027: technical note

Overall, the minimum per pupil funding for primary pupils increases from £4955 to £5115, and for secondary pupils up to year 11, from £6,455 to £6,640. Schools

in IDACI band G will, as before, receive no additional funding through that factor. If they don’t qualify for additional funds through other factors, and some schools won’t, as 62.5% of LSOAs are in IDACI Band G, this could be a challenging year for them.

Many of these schools will no doubt turn to parents for support, or perhaps more will follow the north London school, and look to bring in additional income from operating overseas alongside the many private schools that already have overseas campuses?

With the budget next week, and the local government settlement not being announced any earlier than last year, plus the delay in the High Needs Block announcement, this is going to be a tough budget setting time for schools and local authorities between now and February, when the upper tier local authorities responsible for the NFF must set their council budgets.

Perhaps the High Needs block will feature as a rabbit in the Chancellor’s budget speech to make everyone feel better that the government has found a solution to the massive deficits protected by the override that was extended to March 2027.

Reading the document, I was also struck by the fact that there are more references to local authorities than to the ‘schools forum’. Has the latter run its course as a decision-making body? Is it time to review its future, and certainly its membership?  

Per Pupil Funding set to fall

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Last week, the DfE released data on the change in per pupil funding for 5-16 year olds between 2010-11 and 2023/-24

One the face of it, this is a good news story. Funding per pupil has increased in cash terms from £5,180 in 2010-11 to £7,460 in 2023-24. After falling in the first few years, per pupil funding increased from 2018-19 onwards, according to the DfE data. School funding statistics: 2022 to 2023 financial year – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Looking at the same data using 2022-23 prices reveals a similar picture up to the projections for 2023-24 funding per pupil where, using 2022-23 cash prices, the increase for 2023-24 is not currently enough to allow for the effects of inflation, and funding per pupil falls below funding in cash terms. After taking into account the extra funds received by schools to deal with the pandemic that have either ended already or are likely to do so soon, and weren’t incorporated into the headline figure to ensure the integrity of the time series data, it is possible to see why some schools, especially in the primary sector may be facing a real funding dilemma once again.

According to the DfE, the figures for 2023-24 are based on a combination of published funding allocations, the budget settlements agreed at the 2021 Spending Review and 2022 Autumn Statement, and some estimates of small grant and high needs spending. Of course, the final outturn might prove to be different, in part depending upon how the government and the STRB deal with the issue of teachers’ pay and pay levels for non-teaching staff.

Will the DfE add funds to cover the eventual pay settlement that will recognise the effects of high inflation or will they expect schools to handle the additional costs within the presently agreed funding envelope?

As I have remarked before, the Pay Review body system worked relatively well in times of low inflation and the date for reporting became decoupled from the pay year. The STRB’s 2022 report was published in January of that year, well in time for the new funding cycle to be adjusted to mee the cost of the settlement.

I guess the political shambles at Westminster in the early autumn, and the revolving door of ministers, prevented both the Treasury and spending departments from making the case for bringing Pay Review body Reports forward once it was clear inflation was going to reach a 40-year high.  

The DfE data aggregates all 5-16 spending, so these data don’t show the potential differential impact on the primary sector of the current Funding formula, high fixed costs and in many cases falling rolls. The policy for handing demographic decline doesn’t seem clear to me. Is the government willing to see large numbers of small schools close or will it expect academy trusts to cross-subsidise between sectors as a means of forcing the remaining primary schools to become part of a MAT in order to survive, since local authorities cannot vire funds between schools as MATs are able to do.

Memo to incoming PM

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Despite the record levels of tax receipts, the present economic situation does suggest that genuine economies should be looked for in the public sector. So, here are a few from the school sector that might be worth investigating.

First, sort out the cost of the failed middle tier experiment. Overall, the national leadership costs from academy chains are way too high. This has been recognised in the dreadful Bill working its way through parliament. Maybe there is a need for more than 150 Directors of Children’s Services, but do we need all these additional Chief Officers with their associated costs? Much of the inflated costs stretch back to failure to get grip on Executive Headships by the Labour government under Tony Blair. Sort out the shape of the school system and save money.

Recruiting teachers: axe the DfE jobsite in its present form and put the cost out to tender. As this blog has consistently pointed out, the present DfE site fails on several fronts, and probably isn’t even as cost effective as local authority jobsites.

Encourage central procurement. Delegated budget to schools is a great idea, but so is central purchasing. Do more to facilitate such outcomes across Trusts and local authorities.

Axe the Apprenticeship Levy for small primary schools, or at least reform it so that there can be a benefit. At present it is just a tax on schools.

Dump the tax on Insurance. This would help more than schools, and, at present, taxes the virtuous while encouraging others to avoid protecting themselves and their possessions.

Introduce a fund for investment in renewable energy that schools can use to spread the cost of introducing new energy sources over several years. Target the fund first at small schools in rural areas where the school can act as a community energy hub if the grid fails in a storm or for other reasons.

Regular readers will know my feelings about making use of playgrounds in supporting energy procurement. Where is the research programme

Longer-term, evaluate how teacher preparation programmes can meet the needs of the school sector in the most cost-effective manner, especially as school rolls start to reduce and fewer new teachers may be needed.

Review the National Funding Formula, and whether it meets its aims? In its present form, will it lead to wholesale closure of small schools as unviable financially, and what will be the costs of such closures and who will bear them?

The National Funding formula doesn’t take any account of whether schools can top-up income by lettings; from wealthy parents or by selling resources. As such, it is a crude instrument for school funding and needs a rethink.  Schools in pockets of disadvantage in otherwise wealthy areas are especially vulnerable unless in a MAT that is prepared to switch funds between schools. Much depends upon what the school system is trying to achieve and how the financing can be used to help. Equality based on superficial equal shares of the funds available has its consequences.

So, Prime minister, we need a world-beating school system for all. Over to you.  

School Uniforms: Good idea or extra cost burden?

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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.

Depriving the deprived

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Levelling up is not just an issue for the north of England. Ahead of their Spring Conference, the Liberal Democrats obtained data about reading levels at Key Stage 2 and the percentage of pupils not achieving the expected standard at Key Stage 2 in 2019, the last set of data because of the pandemic. The most revealing data are that for the parliamentary constituencies in England – education is a devolved activity, so the data only covers constituencies in England – of which there are some 533.

My especial interest is, of course Oxford. The west of the city is in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency that ranks 91st worst in the list at the same place in the table with Henley constituency. However, the Oxford East constituency is ranked 502nd worst out of the 533 constituencies in England. This is a really significant difference between the two parts of Oxford.

One issue that this brings into sharp focus is the problems associated with a national funding formula model for schools; a formula that is based upon the needs of a random collection of local authorities responsible for special education and although budgets go to schools not divorced from the way the overall formula is calculated. If you level up by authority, then you miss pockets of need, such as those parts of Oxford East contributing to the outcome for the Oxford East constituency as a whole.

To be fair to teachers in Oxford, way back in 2011, the City as a whole ranked as the worst local authority for Key Stage 1 outcomes, so this looks like an improvement, albeit on different data.

Nevertheless, children in East Oxford need to be able to access the required degree of resources to allow them to reach parity with their peers across the city and elsewhere in England.

London boroughs are disproportionally represented in the list of constituencies with the lowest percentages of pupils failing to reach the expected standard, whereas both rural and urban areas outside of London are to be found among those constituencies with the worst outcomes.

Oxford as a university city – with two universities – has a proportion of children with English as their second languages, but it is not clear that these pupils are disproportionally located in the east of the city, since university accommodation can be found across the city as a whole.

The Conservatives adapted from Labour ideas by inventing Opportunity Areas to offer extra support to areas needing it, but I have not seen any analysis of the outcomes for such areas. Oxford East seemingly didn’t qualify.

It is worth comparing Oxford with Blackpool for reading outcomes, as both are areas with two different parliamentary constituencies. Blackpool’s constituencies are ranked 73rd and 340th while Oxford’s rank 91st and 502nd. Blackpool is, of course, an Opportunity Area: Oxford isn’t. One might well ask why Oxford is not an opportunity Area on the basis of these figures?

Perhaps it is a matter of perception rather than hard evidence. Blackpool isn’t a wealthy university town and has high levels of unemployment. Oxford is viewed as affluent and successful, and a great place to live. To live, but not, at least as far as the East of the City is concerned, to learn.

The dilemmas of teaching

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I regularly come across posts from The Teacher Toolkit on my LinkedIn page. Today there was a post from them about the moral dilemmas teachers face in the classroom. Fortunately, they rarely, if ever are issues of life and death. However, every day, in every classroom across the country, teachers make hundreds of decisions that can affect the lives of those they teach. Do we remember as ‘good teachers’ those that noticed us?

When I started lecturing in the 1980s, there was a course for First year students on BEd courses, in their first term at university that challenged these would-be teachers to consider some of the dilemmas of teaching. The set book for the module was’ Dilemmas of Schooling’ by Ann and Harold Berlak. The couple were two Americans that spent time in British primary schools in the 1970s, a world away from now. However, some of the dilemmas that they raised for discussion seem as appropriate today. I kept my copy of the book and here are a few of their questions aimed at primary school teachers:

Whole child v child as a student? What is the responsibility of a teacher towards the whole child or are we only interested in them as students for learning?

Who controls the use of time in a classroom, the teacher or the child?

For instance, how specific are tasks defined and how much freedom are pupils allowed in selecting aspects of tasks?

How far are standards used to control performance? Remember this was originally raised in the 1970s when central standards didn’t exist except at eleven for all and sixteen and eighteen for some.

There were the dilemmas of control

At that time there was no National Curriculum, so the dilemmas around the curriculum must be understood in that context.

Personal knowledge v public knowledge. Today this might well be discussed in terms of how much of say, history, includes the views of minority groups in the history of Empires, as opposed to that set down in books written from a particular perspective.

This is also an issue for Monday, as teachers decide how far to ditch their prepared lessons to talk about the war in Ukraine. Each child will bring some personal knowledge, as they have done about the last two years of the pandemic. Schools and teachers will decide how to deal with this on an individual basis. Interestingly, the DfE has already put out some resources. https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/02/25/help-for-teachers-and-families-to-talk-to-pupils-about-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-and-how-to-help-them-avoid-misinformation/

Knowledge as content v knowledge as process. Asking closed questions tends to treat knowledge as content, encouraging questioning allows for debate.

Knowledge as given v knowledge as problematical. We all know that the earth isn’t flat. Until recently we taught how many planets there were, but as our knowledge of the universe has expanded so our knowledge has altered as well. Of course, two plus two is four, except in binary maths.

Intrinsic v extrinsic motivation. For control reasons most of the time teachers tend towards extrinsic motivation. I motivated challenging classes in my early teaching days as a geography teacher with a treat at the end of a lesson for work completed, such as, in extreme cases, running a film backwards through the 16mm projector. As I became more experienced, such behaviour on my part diminished. But, do we offer different levels of motivation to different groups of children?

Learning is holistic v learning is molecular. I suppose the teaching of phonics – mandated by a politician, not a teacher – is a supreme example of molecular leaning. There is only one way to learn and this is it.

Each child is unique v children have shared characteristics. I’m pretty sure we all know the answer to that dilemma.

Learning is social v learning is individual. In a sense all learning is individual, but how far do we allow the individuality to interact with the demands of the class of pupils?

Child as a person v child as a client? Teachers are there to help children learn. It is what makes them different from childminders or babysitters. But what makes ‘teachers’ different from tutors? For a tutor, a child is a client, but for a teacher is the relationship wider than that, but there must still be boundaries and these are policed in the realm of inter-personal relationships by the Teacher Regulation Agency.

Finally, there are the societal dilemmas of Berlak

Childhood continuous v childhood unique? Is childhood a special period in ones’ life or is it just different in a degree that has been compartmentalised by society as something different? Of course, there is ‘growing up’ physically, mentally and emotionally, but when does one become an adult. A century ago, the school leaving age was 14, now it is 18. In parts of the world – think the Water Aid adverts – childhood includes the tasks of adulthood. In the past, physical maturing rarely if ever started in the primary school, but now such developments are commonplace in many primary schools, especially for girls.

Equal allocation of resources v differential allocation?

This is an easy dilemma to understand. But as the Pupil Premium makes clear by its very existence there may be cases where equal doesn’t mean that is the appropriate approach. Put another way, are we striving for equality of output: for instance, the aim that all children should be able to read by a certain age, and be provided with the resources to achieve such an outcome? At the classroom level, how does a teacher allocate time between pupils?

Equal justice under law v ad hoc application of rules?

Another relatively easy dilemma to appreciate. Pupils always say that they like ‘fairness’ in teachers and that new teachers lacking control often apply rules in an ad hoc manner. Everyone gets a go or only those that put their hands up? When did you last ask that child a question? I used to ask my students to name all the children in a class. Those that stood out were easy, but the group in the middle were often a struggle to recall. Did they receive equal justice?

Finally, Common culture v sub-group consciousness?

We are much more aware of this dilemma nowadays than we were in the 1970s. But, new areas such as transgender rights are always appearing, to revive the debate in a different light.

As a policymaker, each dilemma is important, but the societal dilemmas resonate especially with me. The debate about levelling up goes to the heart of the resource allocation dilemma, as it always has done in education.

Keep rural primary schools open

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Two years ago, I wrote a blog about rural schools. Update on rural schools | John Howson (wordpress.com) Recently, the DfE published a new update of their list of maintained primary schools in rural areas. Rural primary schools designation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The designation of ‘rural’ means more stringent rules have to be followed before a case for closing such a ‘maintained’ school can be made out. However, as the Order dealing with closures was made before academies were created, I assume that such procedures don’t apply to such schools.

In the recently published DfE list, there appeared t be only one school ‘proposed for closure. The school was located in North Yorkshire, a county with a large number of small rural primary schools.

As in previous lists there were four ‘greenbelt’ schools in the London boroughs, including two in Enfield. Both of those schools are Church of England schools, as indeed are many in the whole list. This reveals something of the history of the development of education in England and the reluctance of the State to become involved in what was seen as a responsibility of families. As the philosopher J. S. Mill put it “the role of the State is to see that its citizens are educated, not to educate them itself.”

There are echoes in Mill’s statement of the dilemma facing the government today over its approach to covid. The term ‘medical socialism’ a modern take on the phrase ‘nanny state’ has begun to appear in the media to explain the demands for no more restrictions on liberties that many Conservatives at Westminster are championing in the face of rules sought to reduce the speed of the spread of covid through the population.

It is interesting that the rules on rural school closures, and the need for a list of such schools, were made by a Labour government. Whether by inertia or a recognition that many such schools are located in constituencies with Conservative MPs, no government has challenged the rules even though they interfere in the workings of the market for school places.

Of course, other policies have impact on the future of rural schools. On the one hand there are the additional cost to the taxpayer locally of providing ‘free’ transport to another more distant school if more than three miles away or reached by an ‘unsafe’ route. On the other hand, the formula for funding schools may make some rural schools financially unviable unless they are part of a larger grouping where excess costs may be subsidized.

However, the funding formula does have some ‘fudge’ factors. In the previous blog the case of Holy Island First School was cited. The latest DfE data shows the cost per pupil as £91,000 compared with £4,292 for St Philip and St James Primary School in North Oxford. Find a school (skillsfunding.service.gov.uk)

Keeping school in their communities comes at a cost, especially in rural areas, but surely that is a cost worth bearing for the sake of these communities.

School Funding webinar: some thoughts

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Last evening I listened in on a webinar about school funding. There are three points that arise from the webinar I found interesting.

Firstly, schools regularly claim to have made all efficiencies possible. However, despite the efforts of the DfE to establish a recruitment web site, and of my own company TeachVac to provide a free service, recruitment spending by schools still runs into many millions of pounds each year.

The problems with the DfE vacancy site are that it requires action on behalf of schools to post vacancies and that it is unattractive to teachers. This is because it does not include both state funded and private schools, and teachers may want a site where they can find all vacancies, such as TeachVac, especially when job hunting is a challenge.

In March, after lockdown, I offered the DfE a free feed of vacancies for three months to include all the vacancies that they didn’t carry on their site found by TeachVac, but was rebuffed. I have heard nothing since.

According to my analysis, the DfE site is still only carrying a proportion of all teaching vacancies, and about 3-4% of vacancies on the DfE site at any one time are vacancies that are not for teachers. The teacher associations seem to have little or no interest in persuading their members to switch to a free site.

Secondly, there is the issue of small primary schools and falling rolls. The current Funding Formula may adversely affect such schools where the loss of only a small number of pupils will impact upon the bottom line of their budget. Closing such schools means children cannot walk or cycle to school, but must be transported by car or bus and this can impact on Council Budgets if free transport is required for the youngest pupils required to travel more than two miles to the next school. In Oxfordshire, there are a large number of small village schools and any closure might have an effect on transport costs for the County. Transporting pupils also adds to climate change issues.

Thirdly, Luke from the IFS mentioned the loss of relative funding for the schools serving deprived areas. He queried whether local government re-organisation might be part of the cause. This seems odd since, apart from Cornwall and Wiltshire, most unitary authorities are smaller than the shire counties they replaced.

In Oxfordshire, one issue is around a small concentrated area of severe deprivation in South East Oxford that is masked within a generally affluent County. As a result, the Funding Formula does not take account of the need of these schools, and there is little by way of mechanisms other than the Pupil Premium to assist with further funding.

To add insult to injury, such schools cannot raise funds from parents as is the case in the more well-off parts of the City of Oxford. The government has experimented with Opportunity Areas, and Oxfordshire’s Education Scrutiny Committee has wondered whether such a scheme might be useful locally. However, there seems to be no mechanism to recognise this issue and provide for additional funding for schools in these areas. I am reminded of the book written in the 1970s about school funding called ‘depriving the deprived’. Seemingly we have headed back in that direction despite talk of leveling up.

Can a mean be mean?

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When I first moved from teaching in a Tottenham secondary school to higher education in Oxford I brought with me an interest in the disparity of funding for schools. Partly this was because working in Haringey, and having been brought up right on the border with the London County Council – by then the Inner London Education Authority – I was aware of the disparity of funding for schools in Haringey compared with those just across the border in Hackney.

One of the early books I read on the subject was by John Pratt and his co-authors and was entitled ‘Depriving the Deprived’. Published in 1979 by what was then, Kogan Page. The book was based upon research that looked at school funding in one London borough over the course of a single year.

I was reminded of this when looking at the latest Free School Meals data for England, published by the DfE last Thursday. As a measure of potential deprivation it as good as it goes. If you consider Oxfordshire, generally rightly regarded as an affluent part of South East England, by the data on Free School Meals taken on census day for the six parliamentary constituencies, you find the following

% of children on Free School Meals on Census day Oxfordshire’s constituencies ranks

Oxford West

& Abingdon                           8th lowest out of 534 

Henley                                   28th lowest

Witney                                  35th lowest

Wantage                               55th lowest

Banbury                                94th lowest

Oxford East                        237th lowest -.i.e. about halfway 

Within Oxford East, some wards will be even worse ranked than others. Now this shouldn’t matter with a National Funding Formula for schools. But it does, because not all the funding calculations take into account differences between schools, rather than between local authorities. Indeed, if each district council area was a unitary council with education responsibility their funding might be different. But, none of the districts are large enough to ‘go it alone’ in the present funding regime.

As a result of the general affluence of Oxfordshire, the nine most deprived council wards in the county; five of which are in Oxford East constituency; three in Banbury and the other one in Oxford West and Abingdon constituency, probably lose out on funding compared to if they were part of a urban area. Such funding arrangements do not help close the achievement gap between high performing areas and the lowest performing schools in the county.

Now, of course, if all secondary schools in the county were in a single Multi-Academy Trust, the Trust could move funds around to mean the extra need of schools in deprived area, albeit by reducing the amount some schools received. However, with many different Trusts, and one remaining maintained secondary school, this option isn’t possible.

Another option of creating an ‘Opportunity Area’, used by Conservative governments in some other parts of the country, mostly in the North of England, doesn’t seem to be open to East Oxford, even though it has been suggested as an option.

So, taking the mean as a measure of funding may really mean depriving those living in some areas 40 years after the issue was exposed in one London borough.

Stuck Schools

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This Report from Ofsted is an important addition to the discussions aound school improvement and deserves to sit alongside other HMI documents on this topic. For those of my generation these include the famous ’10 Good Schools’ report of some 40 years ago.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fight-or-flight-how-stuck-schools-are-overcoming-isolation/fight-or-flight-how-stuck-schools-are-overcoming-isolation-evaluation-report

Using the terms ‘stuck’ and ‘unstuck’ schools, tells it as it is. I was especially struck by the paragraph in the Executive Summary that said:

‘Most stuck and unstuck schools stated that they had received too much school improvement advice from too many different quarters of the school system. Often, the advice was intended to help schools with their improvement strategy. However, this rarely had the intended impact. Leaders perceived that the quality of the advice itself was often lacking. School leaders also commented on a poor match between the problems of the school and the advice on offer. While many were concerned about the lack of support available following inspection, schools often welcomed the fresh thinking and impetus that independent inspection had given them. Schools did not appear to be inhibited from discussing some of the challenges of inspection during this project.’

Ofsted’s suggests that there is enough capacity in the system to move ‘stuck’ schools forward, but that the content of the support, including whether it enables focused may be lacking.  There also needs to be effective action that responds directly to the issues identified. Additionally, is the support for a ‘stuck’ school best provided internally or externally to the school or MAT and there is also a question about the quality of those coordinating or delivering the support?

This last point is important as the fractured governance model for schools sometimes makes it difficult to identify the organisation responsible for taking the lead role in actually improving these schools.

What is the penalty for failure? Obviously, for local authorities and maintained schools, it is a transfer to become an academy. But what of academies? And, especially what of academies that are part of faith-led MATs where the Church doesn’t want to give up running the school, but cannot stop it being a ‘stuck’ school within a reasonable period of time?

Should there be a review of each Office of Regional School Commissioner to establish a baseline of the number of ‘stuck’ schools and a target for improvement that has consequences if not met? Alternatively, should the Office of Regional School Commissioner be abolished and a closer link to local democracy be once again added to our school system?

Finally, there needs to be a discussion about both funding for ‘stuck’ schools and how any extra funding is allocated under a National Funding Formula that clearly doesn’t take fully into account the fact that some pupils need more resources to achieve a desired level of outcome than do others.

Staff Development, and especially leadership development, also needs to be looked at afresh by the DfE. Should we re-introduce a qualification for leadership with modules about leading a ‘stuck school’? At least then the system would have a better idea of capacity to support and ‘unstick’ these schools.

We cannot allow the next decade to be wasted as the last one has been in so many cases as far as the education of these young people is concerned.