DfE consultation into School Improvement Funding

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SENT FROM: GARETH DRAWMER, HEAD OF ACHIEVEMENT AND LEARNING

Dear Colleagues,

As you may be aware, the government has launched a new consultation Reforming how local authorities’ school improvement functions are funded.

As a summary, the government are proposing to:

  1. Remove the School Improvement Monitoring & Brokering Grant (‘the Grant’), which is currently allocated to local authorities to support school improvement activities; and
  2. Make provisions within the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations for the financial year (FY) 2022-23 to allow local authorities to fund all of their school improvement activity (including all core school improvement activities) via de-delegation from schools’ budget shares.

The recommendation in the consultation is that next years grant is reduced by 50%, with full removal of the grant by FY2023/24.

We would be grateful for school leaders to respond to the government consultation detailing how this would impact on your school.  Within Buckinghamshire this grant funds the Side by Side support for intervention and prevention schools and school improvement activities such for all schools, such as the Side by Side conferences programme, the development of Side by Side Champion networks, Liaison Group research work and The Buckinghamshire Challenge project for closing the gap.

If you would like to respond to the DfE, please click on here for the link. The DfE deadline for responses is Friday 26th November.

Kind regards,

Gareth Drawmer

Head of Achievement and Learning

Survey – OFSTED inspection of Outstanding Schools

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DFE consultation on OFSTED inspection of currently Outstanding schools

 

Please respond to our Quick survey for DFE consultation on OFSTED inspection of currently Outstanding schools consultation

 

Ofsted are consulting on behalf of DFE on whether to remove the exemption of Inspection for Outstanding schools and to inspect all publicly funded schools within 5 years.

This change if it takes place will impact a number of Bucks schools, many of which have not been inspected for 10 years or more. The rationale is that this will be a fairer system because all schools will be evaluated by the same new EIF and it will provide more up to date information to parents.

 

BASG is proposing to respond on behalf of all Bucks Governors and is collating your collective views and comments to do. Group responses can carry more weight in these consultation processes.

 

Please can you respond to the 3 questions below. It should only take you 5 minutes or less. Please respond by Monday 10th February. Please add as many comments as you wish so we can put together a full response which fully reflects your views.

Questions for consultation

We welcome your views on whether we should remove the exemption for outstanding schools, colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training. In particular we invite views on:

Poll Jan 2020
1. Do you agree we should remove the exemption for outstanding schools,
which currently means they are not routinely inspected? *
2. Do you agree we should remove the exemption for outstanding colleges
and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training, which currently means they are not routinely inspected? *
3. Do you support our proposed approach for currently exempt
outstanding schools set out in paragraphs 19-25? *

If you wish to receive collated response, please submit your name and email address

GDPR *

 

We will post back collated response for information to everyone

An extract from the full consultation document of the rationale for the change is posted below for your convenience and the full document is here

 

OFSTED rationale extracted from DFE Consultation Document

Proposed approach for inspections of currently exempt outstanding schools, colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training

19. We propose an approach based on that which applies to schools, colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training that are judged good. For schools, Ofsted’s approach is that each school receives a section 8 inspection usually every 4 years.14 This will mean in most schools, there will be at least one inspection during the period that a pupil is attending that school. Colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training receive a short inspection within 5 years of the publication date of the last inspection report.

20. Where schools or colleges or other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training have been inspected and judged outstanding within the last five years,15 we propose that the first inspection should normally be a section 8 inspection (in the case of schools) or a short inspection (in the case of colleges or other organisations), which seeks to confirm whether the school, college or other organisation remains outstanding. 16 Where the inspection confirms this, the next inspection will normally be a further section 8 inspection or short inspection within the next four to five academic years.

21. If, on the section 8 inspection, inspectors find evidence that the school is no longer outstanding, inspectors will return to conduct a section 5 inspection in the next year or so.

22. If the section 8 inspection identifies serious concerns about a school, Ofsted will convert the inspection to a section 5 inspection, usually within 48 hours.17

23. With respect to outstanding colleges or other organisations delivering publicly- funded education and training, if, following a short inspection, the inspection team has insufficient evidence to satisfy itself that the college or other organisation remains outstanding, or there are concerns arising from evidence gathered that the college or other organisation may not be outstanding, the short inspection will be extended to a full inspection within 15 working days.
Schools, colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training not inspected within the last five years

24. Outstanding schools, colleges and other organisations delivering publicly-funded education and training not inspected within the last five years have, as a result of the exemption, missed at least one framework of inspection. They have therefore missed out for a considerable time on the insight and information a section 5 or full inspection provides. We therefore propose that the first inspection of these (those that were last inspected before September 2015) should be a section 5 inspection (in the case of schools) or a full inspection (in the case of colleges and other organisations).

25. If the inspection judges overall effectiveness to be outstanding or good, the next inspection will normally be a section 8 (in the case of schools) or a short inspection.