Northern Ireland Assembly Flax Flower Logo

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John Simmons
Clerk to the Committee
Education Committee
Room 241
Parliament Buildings
Stormont
BELFAST
BT4 3XX

Tel No:(028) 9127 9279
Fax No:(028) 9127 9100
Email: mail@deni.gov.uk
Your Ref: 083/08/I/04
18 March 2008

Dear John

EAST BELFAST PRIMARY & NURSERY PRINCIPALS’ GROUP (EBPG) SUBMISSION TO THE NI ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION 26.10.07

Please find attached the Department’s response to your letter of 29 October 2007.

Yours sincerely

JOHN LEONARD
Departmental Assembly Liaison Officer

EAST BELFAST PRIMARY & NURSERY PRINCIPALS’ GROUP (EBPG) SUBMISSION TO THE NI ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION 26.10.07

RESPONSE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
1. CORE FUNDING IS GROSSLY INADEQUATE IN THE PRIMARY SECTOR
Special Educational Needs

An additional £53m was allocated to Boards, in the financial years 2005/06 to 2007/08, in order to meet demands caused by the increasing numbers of pupils presenting with special educational needs (SENs), of which the Belfast Education and Library Board will have received its share. In April 2006 the Department initiated a Review of SEN & Inclusion to address issues relating to the current SEN framework, including making more effective use of the resources available. As announced by the Minister in her statement on 12 February 2008, £25 million has been secured in the 2010/11 year to allow for the commencement of finalised policy proposals emerging from this review. An additional £2.5million over the next three years has been made available to make a start on a programme to promote pupils’ emotional health and well being in the primary and special education sectors.

Additional funding was secured as part of Spending Review 2004 to enable Boards to recruit additional Educational Psychologists. Currently 24 trainees a year are supported instead of the previous 12. EP training now has a graduate basis plus three years post-graduate training to Doctorate level.

Revised Curriculum
(a) Training

The Department has provided £4.5m in the 2007/08 financial year to support the implementation of the revised curriculum through training for teachers and also the provision of guidance materials. The Partnership Management Board (PMB) responsible for planning the detail of the revised curriculum implementation has delegated some of this resource directly to schools. This means principals can provide planning and preparation time for the revised curriculum for their teachers.

Delegating resource enables school leaders to determine what is required in relation to training and support for their teachers. For example, it enables those principals who want to concentrate on whole-school development to do so rather than having individual year group teachers going out for training.

In direct response to concerns raised by primary principals, the Department arranged the conference on 24th May where the Minister announced that the 07/08 school year would be a transitional one in terms of implementing the revised curriculum and assessment arrangements. The curriculum is being introduced on a phased basis and this will allow more time for principals and teachers to consider the revisions they need to make over time to deliver the revised curriculum in their schools.

There will be continuing funding in 2008/09.

(b) Foundation Stage

The Foundation Stage of the statutory curriculum applied to Year 1 from September 200 7 and will be extended to apply to Year 2 from September 2008.

All primary schools currently receive money for classroom assistance in Year 1 under “Making a Good Start” (MAGS) and some receive money for Year 2 provision under MAGS 2. In addition, in 2007/08 a further £3m has been made available for primary schools to support the introduction of the Foundation Stage.

As a result of the recent spending review an additional £32 million, including £7 million in the 2008/09 financial year, will be made available across the three-year budget period 2008/09 to 2010/11, specifically to support primary schools with the delivery of the Foundation Stage.

This additional funding will mean that the present MAGS funding will, from September 2008 be replaced by Foundation Stage funding, which will apply to all Year 1 and Year 2 pupils.

The Department notified Education and Library Boards on 3 March of 2008/09 MAGs 1 and Foundation Stage allocations for individual schools, and the totals available to them for determination of MAGs 2 allocations to individual schools.  The Department notified individual GMI schools of their MAGS 1, MAGS 2 and Foundation Stage allocations on 3 March.

Pastoral Care

It is a matter for schools management rather than the Department of Education to prioritise the pastoral care teacher’s time in response to pastoral care issues.

The time devoted by the pastoral care teacher will reflect the nature and frequency of issues as they arise in the school. While there is no recommended allocation of protected time for Pastoral Care duties or additional resources allocated for this purpose, it is open to the school principal to use the delegated budget to cover this work.

Currently all Designated Teachers for child protection are allowed 3 days substitute teacher cover to attend child protection and interagency training with social services. The school can claim payment from the relevant Board.

Planning, Preparation and Assessment

Part 2 of the Final Report of the Curran Inquiry recommended a number of measures aimed at tackling teacher workload and reducing bureaucratic burden. One of the five key recommendations prioritised by the teacher unions and employers was the introduction of 10% planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time for all classroom teachers. The Department estimated the total cost of these measures at over £80m a year. Due to competing pressures, resources have not been available to date to implement the Curran 2 recommendations.

The Department has, however, secured additional funding over the next three years of

£12 million, specifically to help primary school teaching Principals.

ICT Support

The Classroom 2000 (C2k) project provides all grant-aided schools in Northern Ireland with an ICT managed service - i.e., equipment, software and connectivity is provided and maintained under central contracts with suppliers. For schools, this means that technical issues are addressed by the appropriate contractor, leaving teachers free to use the equipment and software to support teaching and learning. There is therefore no need for school staff to be involved in any maintenance or repairs beyond the very basic level of, for example, replacing printer cartridges. The service provided by the contractor does not incur any cost to schools.

A contract for the replacement of ICT equipment in all primary schools was awarded to Northgate Information Solutions in November 2006. The replacement process has been completed.

ICT training and development for teachers should be treated as a priority within the existing arrangements for staff development, such as Baker and other closure days. A school’s Development Plan should reflect how it will utilise these training days. There is also specialist external support available from the Curriculum Advisory and Support Services (CASS) officers in each Board area.

The managed service approach allows the vast majority of technical problems to be resolved quickly. The service provided by contractors is subject to stringent service levels set in their contracts. These are monitored by a Service Implementation and Review Group. To date contractors have met the service levels set.

In the summer term of the 2006/07 school year, C2k carried out a customer satisfaction survey which sought opinion on a range of issues including the new Lot 6 managed service and aspects of support offered by the C2k frontline helpdesk. Responses showed a high rate of satisfaction with the service overall, including the time taken to resolve issues reported. Schools were, however, less satisfied with the impact of the installation on the school’s day to day operation and the system handover procedure.

A number of East Belfast schools were involved in a pilot exercise to trial the rollout of Lot 6 in 2006 prior to full installation in all primary schools. The initial service received by these schools was not totally satisfactory. However, the full Lot 6 rollout, including new computers and laptops, has been completed in these schools and the problems have been addressed.

In addition to the Lot 6 replacement programme for primary schools, the Minister announced in May 2007 that 20,000 new laptops would be provided to all schools (including, for the first time, nursery schools) in the 2007/08 school year. C2k plan to distribute these to primary and nursery schools between November and March. A further 5,000 new laptops have already been provided to all primary schools to allow them to carry out computer-based assessment using the InCAS software.

This continues the substantial investment by the Department in ICT of some £282 million since 2000.

Extended Schools

A critical first step in the Extended School action planning process is to identify the needs of pupils, parents and the wider community and to match this against gaps in provision. In the case of schools in neighbourhood renewal areas the Neighbourhood Renewal Partnership will have information which can be drawn on, elsewhere this could be local community groups and local councils. It is not the intention that schools take on responsibility for services already being provided by other organisations.

2 SIGNIFICANT DISPARITIES EXIST WITH OTHER PARTS OF UK & SECONDARY SECTOR

Whilst the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU) constitutes the most significant element of each schools budget, it is important to note that alongside this, other factors within the formula determine the overall budgets for schools. This reflects differing needs - both between schools and at different phases of education. Certain funding factors, in particular Small Schools Support (78%) and Teachers’ Salary protection funding (80%), provide significant levels of funding to reflect the different needs and characteristics of primary schools. AWPU funding alone, therefore, does not represent the overall per pupil funding delegated to a school. Additionally, certain funds are provided outside of formula funding, including some exclusively for primary schools.

The recently announced Budget for 2008 – 2011 outlines the overall spending plans across all services, including education. It is important to stress that our ability to increase the relative proportion of funding for primary schools will be constrained by the overall level of funding for all education services across the next three years.

Within the context of the resources available for education, w e will be looking very carefully at the scope to ensure that the key importance of creating a strong learning environment within primary education is reflected in a more balanced way without creating undue difficulties for the post-primary sector .

The Minister has listened to the concerns of primary teachers and others during the recent consultation on LMS funding issues and has responded to those concerns by making provision for an increase in the primary age weighted pupil unit (AWPU) from 1.02 to 1.04 in 2008-09 with a view to increasing this progressively over the budget period. The budget provides for an average increase in funding per primary pupil in 2008-09 of 4% (£102) . In addition, as noted above, over the next three years an additional £32 million will available to support primary schools with the delivery of the Foundation Stage of the revised curriculum and an additional £12m will be available to help primary school teaching principals.

Pupils in Wales receiving 21% more funding

The assessment of a 21% funding differential between a primary pupil in schools here and in Wales is based on the figures provided in the Report of the Independent Strategic Review of Education (Sir George Bain). This illustrated that in comparative terms, in 2004/05, slightly more per pupil was spent here in the post-primary sector than in Wales, but in the primary sector the level of expenditure was equivalent to 21% more per pupil in Wales. Such comparisons need to be treated with caution since the arrangements for funding schools in the North of Ireland are quite different to the arrangements in Wales.

This was highlighted in the Bain Report, which stated that “ It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons of per pupil funding across the United Kingdom countries, however, because the other jurisdictions calculate these figures using different categories, and different elements within those categories.  Differences in levels of delegation and in arrangements for distribution of central funding add a further layer of complexity.  Some funding streams do not have equivalents across the countries and, as outlined in Paragraphs 5.13 to 5.15, differences in spend must be considered in the context of different levels of relative need” .

Whilst the Report did try and make allowances for the differences between Northern Ireland and Wales it went on to say “There remain differences for which adjustments could not be made and, consequently, the information in Table 5.8 should be interpreted with caution.”

It is also worth pointing out that when publishing information on expenditure per head, the National Statistics for Education &Training reports point out that “ Comparisons of expenditure per head between countries should be made with caution e.g. different countries have different proportions of young people within their population.”

Comparison of a North Belfast school and Banners Gate in England

As highlighted above, the methodologies used to distribute funding vary across regions, including differences in the levels of delegation along with differences in starting age, characteristics of pupils and the profile of needs. This creates difficulties in drawing meaningful comparisons at regional level, and these variations make comparisons at individual school level even more difficult, given the differences in funding and the nature of schools. For example, there are two Banners Gate schools in England, but neither correspond to the same age profile of pupils in a primary school here - one for Nursery, reception and years 1 and 2 (age 3-6) and one is a junior school (age 7-11).

Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU) Funding

Whilst the AWPU factor is the main funding factor, its use in isolation, as a measure of the differences in funding levels, disregards other factors within the formula funding which reflect different needs, in particular support for the significant number of smaller primary schools and the support provided to schools for above average teaching costs.

As the 2 nd Report of the House of Commons Education Committee 1993/94 chaired by Sir Malcolm Thornton (the Thornton Report) on ‘Comparative costs: Perspectives on Primary - Secondary differences’ highlights: “There is clearly an increase in funding as a child progresses from primary to secondary, but we do not believe that the use of AWPU figures in isolation fairly represents it” .

The Thornton report also pointed out “The Audit Commission stressed that LMS was a methodology for funding schools, not pupils, and it was never envisaged that the exact amount of an AWPU for a particular pupil would be spent on that pupil. The formula is too blunt an instrument to direct funding so precisely”. “Concentrating on the change in funding between a year 6 and year 7 (the equivalent of our Year 7 to Year 8) can obscure the more important issues – importance of primary education, (traditionally not recognised in the resources it receives) and the continuous nature of the education process”.

In developing and introducing the Common Funding Formula in April 2005, a key focus was to make progress in narrowing the funding differential between the primary and post-primary phases. The funding formula is regularly reviewed and there continues to be a clear commitment to increasing the proportion of available resources to primary schools, in a way which does not impact adversely on the other phases of education. Changes introduced have included changes to the operation of the Premises Factor (the un-weighting of the pupil element), enhancements in the Small Schools Support and the Teachers Salary Protection factors, alongside specific increases to the AWPU weightings for primary school pupils. However, as the East Belfast Primary and Nursery Principals’ group itself has pointed out, there is a need to ensure that by increasing the levels of funding for primary schools, this does not result in an adverse impact for other phases. Within finite resources available for distribution of funding across all schools, the extent to which primary funding can be enhanced will be dependent on resources secured through the spending reviews for education, competing priorities and the rate at which efficiency plans can be realised, to make more effective use of existing resources and direct savings to key front-line priorities.

It should also be noted that certain funds are held outside of formula funding, and are available to schools over and above their formula-funded allocations. These include a number of resource streams made available specifically for primary schools such as funding to support pupils in the early years of primary school.

Changes in the relative balance of funding directed to primary schools is being progressed, however, within finite resources, this change will take time, to ensure that pupils at other phases are not unduly disadvantaged.

3 FUNDING MUST BE NEEDS DRIVEN

The Department is aware of the particular difficulties faced by schools in inner city areas.

The BELB and WELB will work with primary and post-primary schools in the most disadvantaged areas to assist in school improvement. The aim will be to raise standards within these areas, particularly in relation to literacy and numeracy.

BELB has lost £3 million per year under common formula funding

It is not true to say that BELB schools have lost out as a result of the introduction of or change in the operation of the Common Funding Formula.

Between 2004/05 (the last year before Common Funding) and 2007/08, the budget delegated to BELB schools increased by some £13.5m. In overall per pupil terms, across BELB schools, the rise of over £550 per pupil (or 21.5%) is equivalent to the average increase across all schools in all areas (21.9%) during this period.

BELB schools have experienced significant levels of demographic decline (-7.65%) between 2004/05 and 2007/08, (over twice the average for all sectors of -3.51%). Combined with significant falls in the numbers of pupils, there has also been marked falls in the numbers of pupils registered with an entitlement to free school meals (FSME) - a drop of over 3,200 or -20.8%, compared to the average across all schools of -14.45% during this period.

Funding distributed through the Common Funding Formula is based primarily on pupil numbers, together with a range of factors developed to reflect needs and the characteristics of schools and pupils within them, including funding to mitigate social disadvantage. Changes implemented with the introduction of Common Funding ensure that schools with the highest proportions of pupils with measures of social deprivation receive higher rates of funding. Despite the significant decrease in FSME pupils in BELB, schools in this Board area continue to receive higher levels of funding under the Social Deprivation element of the Targeting Social Need factor, than other Board areas.

In addition to funding allocated directly to school budgets by means of the common formula, schools also have access to central funds for specified purposes and the Common Funding Scheme sets out common arrangements governing disbursement of these funds by Funding Authorities. Schools in the BELB area are treated exactly the same as those with similar characteristics in all the other Education and Library Board areas.

BELB schools also receive support under a number of programmes outside of the delegated, (formula funded), budgets. These include funds that are made available to support schools in all areas, and programmes targeted specifically, or generally, to schools in the Belfast area.

Funding does not currently meet need

The Common Funding Scheme seeks to ensure that schools are funded according to their relative need, and in a way that helps mitigate the effects of social disadvantage. Common monetary values are set for each factor in the funding formula, which is used to distribute funding to all grant-aided schools covered by the Common Funding Scheme.

The formula is made up of a range of factors developed to reflect the main costs associated with the running of a school, with funds delegated to each school to cover all essential expenditure, including teaching and non-teaching staff costs. The formula takes account of the number of pupils; their ages and profile; the relative size of schools; costs associated with school buildings; together with a range of other factors which recognise the distinctive features of individual schools and certain pupils that give rise to significant and unavoidable costs. Curriculum support for relatively small schools, support for schools with above average teaching costs, along with the incidence of social disadvantage and educational under-achievement are also taken into account in the distribution of funding to all schools. Schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of their sector or geographical location or management type. In targeting funding under the social deprivation element within the formula, and in line with the principles of directing resources at those most disadvantaged in our society, schools with the highest proportions of such pupils receive higher levels of funding.

Certain funding is retained and distributed to schools outside of the core delegated funding. This is to facilitate greater targeting of such resources, outside of the formulaic determinations, for specific programmes and support for schools in greatest need.

The Department continues to seek to maximise the level of resources secured for education priorities, and ensure that available resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.

4. NEED FOR MORE STRATEGIC PLANNING

Budget 2007 provides funding for the continuation of core education services and across a range of initiatives, together with additional funding over the next three years, including: