High Peak schools split £2.2m in new funding amid ongoing budget pressures

The borough will split £2,291,718 from the total of £4billion for all schools in England over the next two years, announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his autumn statement back in November.

A typical primary school will receive an extra £35,000 and a typical secondary will receive £200,000, and each will be able to choose how best to use the money, including to pay for teacher salary uplifts and teaching assistants.

In a further boost to budgets, Pupil Premium funding rates, allocated to each school depending on the number of disadvantaged students they have, will also be rising by five per cent in 2023–24.

High Peak MP Robert Largan was among those to welcome the news, saying: “I am absolutely determined that children across the High Peak and around the country should receive a high quality education, including encouraging investment in our schools to support young people to reach their full potential.

“This Government is committed to providing a world-class education and deliver opportunity for all – wherever they come from and whatever their background.”

While education minister Gillian Keegan has said that the additional cash will mean “school funding is set to be at its highest ever level next year, even accounting for inflation”, elsewhere she has said it “would allow schools to return to at least 2010 levels in real terms – the highest spending year in history.”

There remains some disagreement whether even that will be enough to keep pace with the sector’s needs, given that pupil numbers are the highest they have been since the 1970s, and inflation has been at 40-year highs – putting pressure on school operating budgets, staff’s cost-of-living and students’ home lives.

A survey commissioned by the Sutton Trust found that 50 per cent of senior leaders said their school had cut back on trips and outings during the current academic year, while 63 per cent had cut teaching assistant posts and 71 per cent reported difficulties recruiting teachers.

The school leaders’ unions ASCL and NAHT, as well as teaching unions NEU and NASUWT, have announced ballots for strike action after rejecting the Government’s most recent offer on pay and working conditions.

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