A HEADTEACHER has welcomed Government plans to change the funding formula for schools.

Worcestershire receives some of the lowest levels of school funding in the country and teachers hope these changes will balance the average.

The Government now intends to distribute cash according to the individual needs of schools, ensuring that secondary schools receive a minimum of £4,800 per pupil for 2019/20.

Lindsey Cooke, the head of Hanley Castle High School, welcomed the news but questioned whether it will result in an overall increase in funding.

She said: "We have heard about the £4,800 per pupil funding guarantee, which on the surface is fantastic news for Worcestershire.

"Already Worcestershire children are funded at a level below the national average. The current funding formula comes in at just over £4,000 per pupil.

"But as always the devil is in the detail.

"All schools up until now have received education services grant, which covers a whole host of things outside teaching and learning.

"That grant has reduced over the last five years from over £300 per student to £77 and will be phased out completely.

"Our concern is that there will be a £4,800 per pupil guarantee but it won't result in a net increase."

Ms Cooke said inner city schools attract higher levels of funding than institutions in some rural areas.

She added that her school has postponed plans to request donations for books following the Government's funding announcement.

Education Secretary Justine Greening claims the 'historic reform' will ensure that pupils get a quality education wherever they live.

She said: "It means for the first time the resources that the Government is investing in our schools will be distributed according to a formula based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country.

"It will mean that over the next two years, we will deliver on our manifesto pledge to make school funding fairer."

Under the new funding formula, schools will get basic funding per pupil and then extra cash for additional needs, such as deprivation and low prior attainment of pupils.

Ms Greening said that the £1.3 billion in extra funding for schools she announced in the summer meant overall budgets would rise by around £2.6 billion in total from almost £41 billion in 2017/18 to around £42.4 billion in 2018/19 and £43.5 billion in 2019/20.

There would also be a £110,000 lump sum for every school to help with fixed costs and an additional £26 million to rural and isolated schools to help them manage their unique challenges.

Secondary schools that would have been lowest funded under December proposals, would gain on average 4.7 per cent, the Education Secretary said, while rural schools would gain 3.9 per cent on average, with those in more remote locations gaining 5 per cent.

Cllr Ivan Ould, the chairman of school funding campaign group f40, said: “There are some positive elements to the national fair funding announcement that we must welcome, including the extra funding over the next two years, the guarantee of minimum funding that each primary and secondary school will attract and the potential for fast gains in per pupil funding for the very lowest funded schools."

Cllr Ould added: “On the face of it, the promised protected funding for additional needs is also welcome, though once again we need to see how the funding allocations are applied.

“But importantly, I hope that the government looks upon what is on offer today as just another step towards fairer funding and the removal of significant inequities in the funding allocation system.

“The immediate task is to check the many figures and percentages presented in the announcement to see how they apply to the poorest funded local authorities and schools and to determine whether they produce the kind of results that f40 has called for.

“As with previous announcements on this extremely complicated topic, it is important that we look behind the headlines to check what is really on the table. We will be getting to work on applying the new figures to our spreadsheets straight away and discussing the latest position with our member authorities."

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the union welcomed the commitment to a new funding formula, and stressed it was "essential" schools were funded fairly.

"Setting minimum funding levels for schools is also a welcome move, but we need to examine whether the levels announced today by the Secretary of State are sufficient," he said.

"We fear they are still way too low to allow schools to deliver the quality of education they want to provide and which pupils need.

"The fundamental problem is there is not enough funding going into education.

"The additional £1.3 billion announced by Justine Greening in July was a step in the right direction.

"But schools have already suffered huge cuts and the additional funding is nowhere near enough to prevent further cuts.

"And the £1.3 billion comes with the caveat that it is one-off funding split over two years, recycled from elsewhere in the education budget.

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that all this additional funding does is to reduce the real terms cut from 6.5% to 4.6% between 2015 and 2019.

"By ASCL calculations, a further £2 billion a year would be needed by 2020 to address this issue."