More funding, less bureaucracy

On the 21 March HM Treasury made its 2012 budget announcement, giving no mention to the education sector. At a time when the sector is starting to realise that it does have good budgets, and that the initial perception of concern was unfounded, this lack of change was welcomed.

Although not linked to the budget announcement as such, in this past month the sector has seen two noteworthy changes, namely a significant increase in the Pupil Premium funding and a revised Early Years Foundation Stage framework.

The Pupil Premium was a welcomed funding route for schools at the time of suggested budget changes in other areas. It signified the Government’s investment in the country’s more underprivileged children. The measure of who was entitled to the subsidy was based on their eligibility for free school meals (FSM).

In a recent speech made by Rt. Hon Michael Gove, he outlined his commitment to support these children when he stressed the tragic fact that out of the 120,000 children that enter compulsory education each year and are eligible for free school meals, only 40 graduate from university. However it is a sad fact that children who have been eligible for FSM at any point in the past generally have poorer academic results than those who have never been eligible for FSM. What Gove recognises is that many of these children have ‘hidden’ skills and areas of excellence that, if recognised, developed, respected and nurtured, can transform a child from a life of poverty to one of fulfilment and lucrative independence from state support.

Substantiating his commitment to make a change to this statistic, from the 1 April the funding available through the Premium will now amount to £1.25bn, or £600 per deprived pupil in the years from Reception to Year 11 in maintained schools and academies across England.

Schools will also receive £250 per annum for children of parents in the armed services.

The funding also now encompasses any child who has been eligible for FSM at any time in the last six years whether or not they currently claim this benefit. In fact the Pupil Premium has a wide reach. Schools with pupils classed as ‘deprived’ in publically funded non-mainstream settings including Special Schools, General Hospital Schools, Pupil Referral Units and 14-15 year olds in Further Education (FE) Colleges will also attract a Premium of £600 per annum.

Choice of spending
So what does this mean for schools? In line with Gove’s trend of giving more freedom to schools to manage their own budgets in the best way for their pupil’s specific requirements, schools will have the choice of spending the Premium, in a way they think will best support the raising of attainment for these most vulnerable pupils.

However, this freedom comes with terms. Schools must now be accountable for their use of the funding. They will have to publish details of their Pupil Premium allocation, their plans of how to spend it and the impact this had on educational attainment.

The first thing that schools should do is to ensure that the parents or guardians register their children for FSM if they feel they qualify – schools don’t want to miss out on this additional funding.

The broader range of eligibility could cause concern for schools in terms of the amount of administration needed to manage this. For example, how will schools know whether pupils, who could be new to the school, have been eligible for FSM in the past six years? In theory schools need not worry as the Department will pass this information to them. Schools will then be in a position to know exactly how much additional funding their will receive and can start to plan how they best invest this.

The increased Pupil Premium funding certainly appears to be a win-win situation for schools and a welcomed additional budget to invest in specific learning resources for children with their own special needs. And there is more good news for the education sector. This time in the form of less red tape rather than more funding.

On 27 March 2012, Sarah Teather MP (Minister of State for Children and Families) published the reformed Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which will take effect from 1 September 2012.

In summary, the changes have the objective of simplifying the framework, with less bureaucracy to enable early years settings to focus in on key areas including safeguarding children and the early identification of special and additional learning needs.Taking the central aspects of the revision in turn we’ll look at what this means for early years settings.

Sarah Teather has promised that the recently published changes to the EYFS are the first of many, all with the objective of achieving a ‘lighter touch regulatory regime’.

Crucial time
The changes made will start earlier; free childcare for three and four year olds and now, for two year olds, backs the Government’s belief in the importance of supporting children’s development at this crucial time. The previous 69 mandatory goals and assessment, which were a bureaucratic nightmare for pre-school settings, have been refined down to just 17 and the areas of learning and development now consist of three prime and four specific areas.

The prime areas focus on the core knowledge and skills which are the foundations for children’s school readiness and future progress. These are: communication and language; physical; and personal, social and emotional development.

A child will now be assessed at the age of two and three, to either meet the outlined expectations, exceed them or fall below them. It is the achievement of these base line skills that will indicate whether children need additional support before they start compulsory education.

Parents will also have greater involvement in their child’s development, receiving a development progress check for their child at the age of two so they will hopefully be committed to support any additional learning requirements.

Over all, it appears that the goal is for early years settings is to have less paperwork, enabling them to focus more strongly on the areas of learning most essential for children’s healthy development.

Safeguarding is a key word at the current time and is positioned centrally in the framework. Early years education providers will be given advice on signs of abuse, mobile devices with photographic functionality will not be permitted in pre-school settings, and it will now be the responsibility of the early years setting to gain any criminal record disclosures on managers where previously this has been the responsibility of Ofsted.

March appears to have been a good month for the education sector with these two changes in policy and funding – let’s hope it continues.

About the Author
Ray Barker is a former director of the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) which has over 300 members including manufacturers and distributors of equipment, materials, books, consumables, furniture, technology, ICT hardware and digital content - all to the education market. BESA members supply across the curriculum and at all levels from early years to FE and vocational training. Their combined total turnover is in excess of £1.8 billion.

Further information
www.besa.org.uk