Fairer funding for Penistone Grammar School
- Amelia French
- Mar 2, 2017
- 2 min read
Penistone Grammar School to receive more Government funding after years of neglect. But it is enough?
When the inequality of the current national funding formula for schools was brought to the public's attention last December, local parents and students were shocked to discover that Penistone Grammar School was in the lowest 25 funded schools in the country.
[Pictured above: Penistone Grammar School Advanced Learning Centre has received years of underfunding impacting the students and their education.]
On average, schools in Barnsley receive only £3661 per pupil per year, with Penistone Grammar School Advanced Learning Centre receiving the least amount of money out of all the schools in the borough.
Whereas 175 miles down the M1 in Hackney, London, schools can receive double this amount, which the local community believe is extremely unfair.
[Pictured above: The Urswick School, Hackney, receives almost double the amount of money per pupil per year that Penistone Grammar School receives.]
[Map: Shows the location of Penistone Grammar School compared to The Urswick School, Hackney.]
"Cutting to the bone."
As a result of the lack of funding Penistone Grammar has received, the 1500 pupil school has a mounting deficit of over £300,000, which continues to grow daily.
Principal Jo Higgins said "To say it's a crisis is not overdramatising it. We have cut to the bone. Our staff are on their knees."
In the last 4 years alone, PGS has lost over 40 staff members due to the underfunding they have received from the Council. This is impacting the students education dramatically as class sizes have expanded, and resources are more thinly spread.
In addition to the loss of teachers, certain courses have been axed from the syllabus and the Learning Support Unit has been scrapped.
Chair of Governors and local father of three, David O'Hara stated "With fewer teachers, students are bound to be held back. That's what we need to address."
Year eight Penistone pupil, Georgia Whitwam agreed that the current funding system isn't fair. "I wasn't aware schools didn't all receive the same amounts of funding. The fact we get half as much as other schools, just because we live outside London isn't right."
Governors of the school are now refusing to sign off anymore cuts, and sent letters to the households of every student enrolled, informing them of the school's financial situation.
Time for change.
The nationwide inequality has lead the Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, to devise a new national funding formula for schools around the UK.
While the new funding formula is designed to redistribute existing money more fairly, Penistone Grammar, like many other secondary schools, are still unhappy with the outcome.
Due to an 8% average cut to the education budget, Penistone, who should receive an extra 10.7% funding (£653000) in 2018, will realistically only gain an extra 2.7%. Higgins stated that this amount of money will make no significant difference due to rising employment costs.
When asked whether he thought more money needed to be redistributed, David O'Hara made his response clear, saying that schools "should be achieving equality within the next two or three years."
[Video: Penistone Grammar School's Chair of Governors, David O'Hara, talks about the current school funding system's impacts on Penistone and further redistributions that should take place.]
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