More children across Lewisham will be able to access a world-class education due to a major funding boost by the government.
The Conservative Government has confirmed schools in Lewisham will receive 1.99% more funding per pupil next year as part of the recent multi-billion investment in primary and secondary education.
Chair of East Lewisham Conservatives, Helena Croft, has welcomed this new funding, saying, the commitment that every secondary school pupil will receive a minimum of £5,000 next year and that every primary school pupil will receive a minimum of £4,000 by 2021-22 would reassure parents of the Government’s promise to deliver the best for their children.
This funding follows the Prime Minister’s announcement in August that the budget for schools and high needs would be increased by a total of over £14 billion over three years, rising to £52.2 billion by 2022-23. Schools and local authorities will today find out how the first part of that investment - £2.6 billion - will be allocated for the coming year.
The extra money, available from April, will ensure that per-pupil funding for all schools can rise at least in line with inflation and will deliver promised gains in full for areas which have been historically under-funded
Commenting, Helena said:
‘Every child in Lewisham deserves the best possible start in life – regardless of their background or where they live.
‘The 1.99% per pupil funding boost next year will mean that every school in Lewisham will receive a budget increase, giving teachers, parents and pupils the certainty to plan, and supercharging standards in our schools.
‘This new funding will also target those schools who need support the most need, making sure that every parent in Lewisham can be sure their children are getting a world class education.’
For more information please contact [email protected].
Notes
Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are committed to properly funding and improving our schools:
- Increasing funding in our primary and secondary schools by £14 billion, so that every child can get a good education. We are lifting per pupil funding to a minimum of £5,000 for secondary school pupils and £4,000 for primary school pupils, as well as providing £700 million more for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (DfE, Press Release, 30 August 2019, link).
- Recruiting and retaining more teachers, so that the best talent is drawn into our schools. We have increased the salary for new teachers to £30,000 by 2022/23, an increase of up to £6,000. There are also now 12,000 more teachers than in 2010 (DfE, School Workforce in England, 27 June 2019, link).
- Introducing new inspection measures to boost standards in schools. We are reintroducing Oftsed inspections for outstanding schools so that parents can be confident that schools rated outstanding really are providing the highest standards (DfE, Press Release, 1 September 2019, link).
- Empowering communities to open their own schools, so every child can access a good or outstanding school place. At GCSE level, free schools outperform all other types of school with an average Progress 8 score of 0.24. At A Level, the average point score per entry at 16-19 free schools is 36.53, outperforming all other non-independent schools (DfE, Key Stage 4 Including Multi-Academy Trust Performance, 24 January 2019, link; DfE, Revised A level and other 16-18 results in England, 24 January 2019, link).
- Supporting struggling schools to maintain high standards for all pupils. More than 2,000 struggling schools will benefit from a three-year programme of support to drive up standards, giving them access to of some of the country’s best performing school leaders (DfE, Press Release, 24 May 2019, link).
- Dramatically improving children’s literacy skills with our phonics reforms. Thanks to our phonics reforms, England has risen to joint 8th place in the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, up from joint 10th in 2011 and the historic low of 19th under Labour. 82 per cent of pupils are now meeting the expected standards in phonics, up from 58 per cent in 2012 (DfE, PIRLS 2016: Reading Literacy Performance in England, 5 December 2017, link; DfE, Press Release, 26 September 2019, link).
- Created 921,000 new school places since 2010, making sure children get off to the best start in life. 636,000 of these places have been created in primary schools after Labour cut 100,000 school places between 2004 and 2010. 87 per cent of primary schools are now judged good or outstanding, compared to 67 per cent in 2010 (DfE, Press Release, 16 April 2019, link).
- Introducing our new, more challenging, primary curriculum. In 2016 we introduced more rigorous KS2 tests which set pupils up to succeed at secondary school and beyond. Latest results show that 65 per cent of year six pupils achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, up from 53 per cent in 2016 (DfE, Press Release, 9 July 2019, link).
- Narrowing the attainment gap by 13 per cent since 2011, spreading opportunity more widely. The disadvantaged pupils’ attainment gap index has fallen from 3.34 in 2011 to 2.90 in 2018, a 13 per cent decrease. We are also spending over £2 billion a year on pupil premium, which provides additional funding for more disadvantaged pupils (DfE, National Curriculum Assessments at Key Stage 2, 13 December 2018, link; DfE, Pupil Premium: Allocations and Conditions of Grant, 17 December 2018, link).
- Extending free school meals, investing in breakfast clubs and piloting ways of supporting disadvantaged families during the holidays. Our new eligibility criteria means that 1 in 7 school pupils are eligible for free school meals, the highest proportion since 2014 (DfE, Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics, 27 June 2019, link).
