I welcome the announcement made by Education Secretary Justine Greening, which laid out the finalised plans for a national funding formula for schools. In what she called “the biggest improvement in the school funding system for decades”, the Secretary of State was able to confirm that every school in the country will see funding rises of at least 0.5% in 2018/19 and 1% in 2019/20 compared to their baselines, with every secondary school guaranteed to attract £4,800 per pupil funding by 2019/20 and every primary school guaranteed £3,500 per pupil by the same year.
Schools in my constituency will see their budget’s increase by an average of 3.5%, with every school benefiting to some degree and some schools seeing budget rises of as much as 25%. In total, more than £1,500,000 of additional funding will be directed to schools in Mid Worcestershire. This is largely because of an additional £26 million of dedicated sparsity funding targeted at the most remote and underfunded schools, which helps towards an average increase of 3.9% in the budgets of rural schools across the UK.
I am delighted that every state funded school in my constituency will benefit from the new funding formula and have an increased budget. This is something I have been campaigning on since first being elected – working alongside many local school heads, teachers and parents.
I am pleased that historic inequalities in school funding are going to be corrected. Currently there is nearly a £1,000 funding gap per pupil per year between schools in Worcestershire and schools in Birmingham and I glad that the Secretary of State clearly recognises that targeting funding towards rural schools is one of the essential elements of tackling this unfair funding system. Schools in my constituency will see an average rise of 3.5% in their budgets totalling £1,500,000, something that will have a very real impact on the quality of education delivered to local children.