Autumn Budget 2017: SCHOOLS NorthEast response
Autumn Budget 2017: SCHOOLS NorthEast response
Mike Parker, Director of SCHOOLS NorthEast, said: “The Government is failing to meet its stated commitment to end inequality in education and to drive greater social mobility in deprived communities. This Budget has done precious little to change that. While the Chancellor continues to scrabble down the back of the sofa for small-scale initiatives, the education system faces budgetary shortfalls that risk harming pupils’ education and the long-term productivity of the country.”
On specific issues in the Budget:
National Centre for Computing and new computer science teachers
“The Chancellor’s commitment to invest £84m in a new National Centre for Computing and the intention to triple the number of fully-qualified computer science teachers is much needed.
“The digital sector is very much a part of the economic strategies pursued by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership and Tees Valley Combined Authority- we can think of no better place to locate the National Centre for Computing than the North East.
“In our region we have established, blue chip companies like Sage, Accenture and Ubisoft, world-beating graduate talent, significant academic expertise and the creation of the Digital Catapult, combining the research power of our five regional universities. We also have exceptional expertise in partnerships such as Sunderland Software City, The Cloud Innovation Centre, Dynamo, Generator and Digital Union.
“We call on the Chancellor to meet with regional decision makers to discuss basing the National Centre for Computing in our region.”
Maths
“We strongly welcome the expansion of the Teaching for Mastery of Maths programme to a further 3,000 schools and the invitation for more specialist maths schools to be set up. The boost for Teaching for Mastery of Maths will help more teachers to help even more children gain the maths skills that will benefit them throughout their education and throughout their careers.
“We are however concerned about the proposal to incentivise the study of A-Level Maths and Further Maths through a £600 bonus to pupils post-GSCSE. The unintended consequences could see pupils pushed into courses they are ill-suited for. Instead, the focus should be on educating pupils and parents of the long-term benefits and the career opportunities offered to pupils of studying these more challenging qualifications.”
Teacher Development Premium
“The announcement £42 million to fund additional training for teachers in underperforming schools is extremely welcome. SCHOOLS NorthEast is already advising the Department for Education on how to attract teachers to disadvantaged areas. However, a lot more will need to be done if we are to resolve the problems schools in the most difficult areas face in recruiting and retaining the best teachers.”
T-Levels
“We welcome the broad range of educational courses to enable students of all abilities and interests to be prepared for the world of work. The Chancellor had already announced £500 million in funding in the Spring budget and we welcome this extra £20 million to assist teachers with preparation for their introduction.”
Comments on notable omissions from the Budget:
Opportunity areas
“The absence of any announcement on Opportunity Areas continues to deprive the North East of any involvement in the Government’s flagship scheme to tackle educational and social inequality. Not only are we missing out on a share of £72m direct funding, we also lose out on school improvement and leadership investment which has been heavily weighted in favour of other parts of the country that benefit from this initiative.”
Additional funding for schools
“The lack of any additional funding for schools was a very disappointing omission from the Chancellor’s statement. While the £1.3 billion transferred from the capital budget to the schools budget in July was welcome, the Government needs to do a lot more than raid other parts of the education budget to cover current spending. The lack of action today falls well short of what schools needs to continue to provide the quality education that parents, teachers and school governors are so passionate about.”
High Needs Funding
“The Government currently provides over £5.8 billion per annum to local authorities to support children and young people with high needs. If the number of high-needs pupils continues to grow proportionate to increasing total pupil numbers, something few people think will happen – it will almost certainly grow faster- an extra £600 million will need to be found in the next decade. This is an area heading for a funding crisis and we are disappointed that the Chancellor remained silent on this issue.”