Tag Archives: primary

Time for school approaches

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As schools start to gear up for the new term, interest begins to focus on whether there will be any pupils that won’t have a school place at any school. this September? This would be the result of the increased number of children expected to start school this autumn. Hopefully, such an outcome will be unlikely, even for late applicants, because councils have been aware of the expected growth in the school population for a number of years now. Of course the outcomes won’t be satisfactory for everyone. Some pupils will be taught in temporary classrooms, and Barking & Dagenham Council in East London is apparently contemplating building schools in some of their parks, if recent press reports are to be believed. http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/barking_and_dagenham_may_build_schools_in_parks_to_tackle_primary_place_crisis_1_1503807

However, not all the problems are in London. A mother in East Kent, whose child will have to be taken to school by taxi because of lack of places locally, is apparently upset at the risks such an outcome poses to her offspring. http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Broadstairs-mum-hit-schools-postcode-lottery/story-19605410-detail/story.html#axzz2dLcD7rGf If the Council has to incur that sort of costs then I would be surprised if they hadn’t exhausted every other possibility.

So far there are few examples of issues in the secondary sector where many schools are not running at close to their capacity limits because of changes in the age profile over recent years. This has meant the secondary school population has been in decline from its high reached some years ago. However, that trend won’t last, and there will be pressure on secondary school places over the next decade, especially in London and the South East.

The main anxiety for ministers outside the DfE is that the traditional system for in-year transfers will break down in the secondary sector as each school effectively becomes its own admissions authority. A well-functioning labour market no doubt needs workers to be able to transfer to jobs across the country at any time of year. For some workers with children this can mean either a move of school during the year or the parent living in rented accommodation and commuting each week. Making the task of finding a new school too challenging may put some off from moving jobs until the summer holidays. Of course, for some it might also mean that boarding schools could look more attractive, especially if there was the possibility of several moves during a child’s education. After all, this was often the justification used by many in the military for the use of boarding schools for their children.

Whatever the school pupils will be attending this September, or are already are in Scotland and parts of Northern England, my best wishes go out to you. Even if it wasn’t your parents’ first choice of school, as my primary school wasn’t over 60 years ago, may you be happy and successful there, and may you make many friends.

Hard times hit some secondary schools

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There was good news for some primary schools this week with the announcement that the Pupil Premium for pupils in the primary sector would increase from £900 per pupil to £1,300 from April 2014 despite the general cutback on government spending. The Premium for secondary school pupils will remain at £900 for another year; the level of the Service Children Premium for 2014/15 has yet to be announced.

In Oxfordshire, the changes will especially benefit schools in the East Oxford constituency which has the highest levels of deprivation in the county. There will also be some schools in Banbury, Didcot and Abingdon that will receive additional cash. The breakdown of the Pupil Premium by Oxfordshire’s parliamentary constituencies is shown in the following table.

Parliamentary Constituency

Pupils included in the Deprivation Pupil Premium allocations

(Jan 13 census)

Total funding for the Deprivation Pupil Premium for 2013-14 at £900 per pupil

Illustrative primary funding totals for the Deprivation Pupil Premium for 2014-15 at £1,300 per pupil

Increase between 2013-14 and 2014-15
Banbury

1675

£1,507,500

£2,177,500

£670,000
Henley

713

£641,700

£926,900

£285,200
Oxford East

2421

£2,178,900

£3,147,300

£968,400
Oxford West and Abingdon

987

£888,300

£1,283,100

£394,800
Wantage

1236

£1,112,400

£1,606,800

£494,400
Witney

1045

£940,500

£1,358,500

£418,000

The government has now taken to calling the Pupil Premium the Deprivation Pupil Premium, presumably to explain to schools exactly what it is intended to be used for. However, the naive attempt to distinguish why the rate has been set higher for the primary sector than for older children by demanding that primary schools make pupils ‘secondary ready’ can only have come from politicians without any real understanding of the education sector.

Commentators have been suggesting for some time now that money spent ensuring pupils make the best progress early on in their schooling pays dividends later. But, to call it making them ‘secondary ready’ was an insult to the real purpose of schooling at both primary and secondary levels. As a cheap sound bite it fell flat, but sadly it did draw attention away from the real purpose of the Pupil Premium that is to help ensure that more pupils are able to achieve higher standards. There is plenty of data to demonstrate that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve less well than those from more favoured homes when at school. Indeed, figures released by the army this week showed the poor literacy and numeracy rates among young trainee soldiers compared with ratings in the navy, and recruits to the Royal Air Force.

The government hopes that the extra Pupil Premium will help whole classes move forward faster together as a unit. Although it admits that Schools will be able to spend this money in ways that they feel helps their pupils best. Evidence shows some schools use it to hire extra staff, reading and maths classes for children who need an extra hand, or to provide appropriate other facilities. The scale of the problem can be seen in the fact that in 2012, only 68 per cent of 11 year olds eligible for the Pupil Premium achieved the expected level in English and Maths despite the fact that 84 per cent of all other pupils aged 11 achieved that level.

Of course the downside is that some secondary schools, still losing older pupils as their rolls continue to decline at the upper end, won’t see this extra cash just as their intake of pupils from the primary sector that hadn’t benefited from the Pupil Premium at the start of their school careers begins to increase. Only time will tell if Ofsted will take this factor into account when judging secondary school performance.