New funding to improve schools and drive up standards announced by Justine Greening
Education Secretary Justine Greening announced yesterday a new wave of funding meant to address underperformance and “help ensure every child has a good school place”.
From September 2017, there will be a £50m a year fund for local authorities to continue to monitor and commission school improvement for low-performing maintained schools.
A new “Strategic School Improvement Fund” of £140m will also be set up for academies and maintained schools to ensure that resources are targeted at schools most in need of support to drive up standards.
The announcement also states that the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has committed to spend a further £20m over the next 2 years to “scale up” and disseminate evidence-based programmes and approaches.
The Education Secretary said: “I want every child to have access to a good school place and with almost 1.8 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, we are making great strides toward that goal.
“I want this investment to not only transform outcomes for children by improving schools, but also to make sure our school-led system learns from that work. That is why the EEF has a key role to play in this project.
“It’s vital that we now pull these two aspects together to get the maximum impact for children and schools.”
The announcement also provides further support for local authority schools ahead of the move to the new National Funding Formula.
The DfE statement is available to read here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-funding-for-school-improvement–2