Nantwich Education Partnership Urges Parents to respond

Contained within Audlem School's weekly report (published recently on AudlemOnline) was this section about school funding. This represents a challenge to the education of all our children and grandchildren in the village, so we publish it separately for everyone to see.

Proposed National Funding Formula for Schools

As you may be aware, the Government is consulting on proposals for changes to school funding that will result in a £9.3 million reduction to funding for education across Cheshire East, with 131 out of 146 schools seeing a reduction in funding, including our school.

All schools in Cheshire East are currently working together, with the full support of the local authority, to challenge these proposals. A delegation has met with the Minister, Nick Gibb MP who has given a commitment to consider the minimum level of funding required to deliver a good education and consider some historic anomalies which have resulted in this potential reduction in funding.

Schools across the Nantwich Partnership are working together to respond to these proposals and I recognise that many of you will want to respond to the Government's consultation.

This is available here.

The Consultation is open until 22nd March 2017 and Audlem School Head, Becky Jewitt, would urge everyone to respond.

Nantwich Education Partnership has now responded by sending this letter to all parents and urging them to respond

Nantwich Education Partnership

Dear Parents and Carers
As many of you are aware, the Government is consulting on proposals for changes to school funding that will result in a £9.3 million reduction to funding for education across Cheshire East. These changes will see 131 out of 146 Cheshire East schools receive a reduction in funding.
As a partnership of schools across Nantwich, we feel compelled to write to all our families to provide you with examples of how this proposed funding cut will have a significant detrimental effect on the provision of education across Nantwich for all of our children.

The Department for Education has stated that one of its main aims for a National Funding Formula is to address funding inequalities across the country. Cheshire East has historically been one of the lowest funded local authorities in England. The current proposals will see children in our schools receiving £344 less per pupil when compared to the rest of the North West.
Cheshire East will also continue to be underfunded compared to all similar authorities nationally, meaning our schools will not have sufficient funding to provide the basic minimum education for children across Nantwich.

For example, schools will lose an average of 2.1% per pupil as a result of these proposals. This will inevitably lead to schools being required to make significant adjustments including possible class size increases, teacher and teaching assistant cuts, a significant reduction in the amount of support that we can provide for individuals and groups of pupils and narrowing of curriculum options with subjects such as music and the arts being marginalised.

These proposals are in contrast to the DFE's aims and will increase inequalities across regions, meaning that children in our schools will not have the same opportunities as children in other similar schools and local areas.
We recognise that many of you will want to respond to the Government's consultation. This is available
here
The Consultation is open until 22nd March 2017 and we would urge as many parents and carers as possible to respond.

We are aware that the consultation questions are not presented in a particularly accessible way. Please be aware that ALL responses will be considered including any part responses. Parents and carers do not, therefore, need to respond to every question in the consultation. We would suggest that the first 4 questions are responded to as a minimum. The remaining questions can be left blank for submission – part completed responses will still be counted.We thank you for your ongoing support and understanding through this challenging time for us all.

Yours sincerely
Nantwich Partnership Primary Headteachers

The full letter can be viewed by selecting the PDF file below the photograph

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