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‘Middle class’ schools win game
Rules on finance lead to legacy of secondary education failure, says MP
BOTCHED funding agreements between Westminster council and its secondary schools are sustaining “a legacy of underachievement”, MP Karen Buck said this week.
Ms Buck secured a major education debate in the House of Commons on Friday. The member for Regent’s Park and Kensington North said the council was favouring middle class schools and failing disadvantaged pupils in north Westminster.
She told schools minister Beverley Hughes: “Most secondary schools in my constituency have a legacy of desperate underachievement. The children are all capable of achieving a great deal more and there is a legacy of serious attainment problems.
She said: “I am not trying to play the class warrior, but I have one ward where 83 per cent of children live in work-less households, many have been homeless and, by definition, all live on benefits. They do not have access to the cultural enrichment that middle class parents can offer their children, and we know that that matters.”
She said the local school was getting less funding than a “middle class” school – Quintin Kynaston – despite its having more than double the number of pupils requiring free school meals.
Ms Hughes said: “Westminster has a method of allocating resources that is based 50 per cent on school numbers and 50 per cent on a definition of need.
“The school in a middle class area… has significantly more pupils than the school in the deprived area, so the 50 per cent that relates to school numbers will bump up its allocation of extended school start-up money.
“The formula for the need element is hard to understand… it looks strange that a school with only 14 per cent of children on free school meals should receive more than a school with 32 per cent of children on free school meals.”
And Ms Buck added that schools receive just £20 per pupil each year to supply after-school clubs and holiday services and targeted Westminster council for charging for sports pitches.
Paddington Academy in North Wharf Road pays £5,000 each year to the council to use the Astro-turf facility at Paddington Recreation Ground. She said: “A representative told me it pays £10,000 a year for off-site facilities, including sports pitches. Almost £5,000 is spent just to access pitches on Paddington Recreation Ground.”
The £10,000 is half the money the government provides to the academy for its extended schools budget.
The extended schools budget is to provide all pupils with free after-school facilities including sport, drama and music.
“It is no good our giving with one hand and taking away with the other, ” she said.
Ms Hughes replied: “Local authorities should make their leisure facilities available, free of charge, to schools that do not have such facilities. Other local authorities have adopted that approach.”
The council was unavailable for comment. |
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