Vale headteachers write to Prime Minster to issue grim warning over funding

Two concerned headteachers have issued a stark warning to the Prime Minister and Education Secretary over cuts to secondary school funding.
Aylesbury High School is named best girls school for sports - pictured is head teacher Alan Rosen PNL-140324-142721001Aylesbury High School is named best girls school for sports - pictured is head teacher Alan Rosen PNL-140324-142721001
Aylesbury High School is named best girls school for sports - pictured is head teacher Alan Rosen PNL-140324-142721001

Alan Rosen, head of Aylesbury High School, and Pete Rowe, head of Princes Risborough School have written a joint letter to Prime Minister Theresa May and Education Minister Justine Greening expressing their fears over continued cutbacks.

The pair state in the letter that they write on behalf of all secondary schools in Buckinghamshire, and urge the government to urgently provide more cash for the lowest funded schools in the country.

The letter (which can be read in full on our letters page), says: “We do not seek special treatment for our sector of schools, nor for Buckinghamshire, but ask that you urgently provided additional funding to all of the lowest-funded schools in England for the forthcoming financial year, pending the introduction of the delayed National Funding Formula.

“We strongly believe that to inflict yet another year of hardship on the schools who for many years have suffered the most from the iniquitous national funding set-up wouyld be extremely damaaging.”

The letter claims that the current funding system is unfair, and that in other parts of the country schools secondary schools the same as in Bucks receive more money.

An excerpt read: “If we were based in Wandsworth, a typical Bucks secondary school would receive around an extra £400,000 to £500,000 pa. Even being funded at the levels of local authorities on our boarders would generate an additional £200,000 to £500,000 pa.

“This scale of inequality is indefensible, particularly when it is replicated every year and it becomes incremental.”