An event held in the House of Commons and sponsored by an Isle of Wight Councillor has helped keep pressure on the government to renew the way funds are allocated to schools.
A recent seminar on the subject “How should we fund England’s schools?”, organised jointly with the national think tank the Education Policy Institute, saw a panel of national experts challenge the Government to rethink the allocation of money to both primary and secondary schools.
The event was Chaired by Rt Hon David Laws, former Liberal Democrat Schools Minister during the Coalition Government, and was sponsored by the award-winning communications agency, The Whitehouse Consultancy, owned by Councillor Chris Whitehouse, the member of the Isle of Wight Council for the Newport West Ward and a Director of the Westminster Education Forum.
Speaking at the event, Cllr Whitehouse said:
“Frankly, the proposed New Schools Funding Formula is a mess. It failed to address the fundamental injustice that schools in many of our major cities receive considerably more money per pupil than those in some rural areas and towns. This is simply unacceptable. The proposed formula for the Isle of Wight would have given all our secondary schools some more money, but at the cost of funds for many of our primaries. That makes no educational or financial sense and I call on the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, to rethink her approach.”
Cllr Whitehouse today added:
“Since the event took place, Ms Greening has announced that she will indeed look again to make sure no school loses out in cash terms and will transfer to schools a further £1.3 billion from elsewhere in the education budget. But that will still effectively freeze budgets at current levels for two years and I personally believe that we need to invest more, not just in the curriculum, but also in teachers’ salaries. Both school budgets and teachers’ pay have been squeezed too hard and for too long.”
Photo shows from left to right: Rt Hon David Laws, Chair of the Education Policy Institute; Mark Emmerson of the City of London Academies Trust; Michelle Wildman of the Parent Teacher’s Association UK; Malcolm Trobe of the Association of School and College Leaders; and Councillor Chris Whitehouse in the MacMillan Room of the Palace of Westminster.
