Home to School transport

What level of transport from home to school should the State provide for parents? At present, this is an area of policy that rarely seems to be reviewed. For instance, when the learning leaving age was raised to eighteen, the rules on free transport to school were not changed. As a result, many pupils that receive free transport up to age sixteen, and the end of Year 11, no longer qualify for free transport in Years 12 or 13, even if they remain at the same school.

Yes, some local authorities do pay for SEND transport for post-16 students, but it is not a requirement to do so. TfL still provide generous free transport for young people resident in London, although the Elizabeth Line beyond West Drayton to Reading isn’t included.

The question must be: if young people in London can qualify for free bus and tram travel, why must those living elsewhere in England depend upon local rules set by the upper tier local authority? The answer, of course, is that local authorities must fund the home to school transport budget, and it needs to compete against all other priorities, whereas in London, the transport authority, TfL, foots the bill for transport costs.  

Most authorities now only pay for transport over three miles (2 miles for pupils under eight, but above statutory school age) to the nearest school if selected first at the time of the admissions process. There may be different rules for selective secondary schools, and some authorities won’t pay for travel to these schools if located in the area of another authority despite the fact that most are now academies.

For instance, Essex County Council and Castle Point Unitary Authority state that:

Grammar (selective) school

Children from low income families qualify for school transport if they live 2 or more miles from the selective school.

School transport will also be provided if the selective school is closer than the nearest maintained school or academy and 3 miles or more away. School transport: Who qualifies for home to school transport – Essex County Council

This means that many parents have to pay to send a child to a selective school unless they qualify as a low-income family.

In rural areas there may not be bus services, and local authorities will only pay where a road is deemed unsafe due to traffic. Any alternative route less than three miles, even if an unlit footpath across fields, often doesn’t qualify for free transport unless an appeal panel is willing to go outside the rules.

In their 2023-24 budget, Oxfordshire has a figure of around £30 million for home to school transport, so it isn’t an insignificant issue for rural counties. The bulk of this was for transporting pupils to mainstream schools and not for SEND transport.

So here are some policy suggestions for discussion

• Raise the current age level for transport to the same school from 16 to 18
• Ensure SEND transport to both schools and colleges
• Negotiate student fares with both bus and train operators as similar rates for same journey
• Merge school transport with active travel policies to encourage car pooling or use of local community transport
• Pay bike vouchers to encourage cycling to school
• Review national guidelines on what constitutes ‘safe routes’ to exclude footpaths or bridleways for inclusion and only include roads
• Create a national policy for travel to selective schools funded by central government as these schools are no longer ’local’ schools
• Prevent state schools from running their own buses
• Ensure any child offered a paid for place has the place available for a whole school year.
• Amend the mileage rule to cover all sites for split site schools

The present distance rules were set many years ago. Is it still acceptable in this modern age to use a three-mile limit or should it be reduced?

Finally, how should any changes be paid for? Should there be a national scheme, as for the bus pass for the elderly, and should the rules be more favourable for London than for rural areas, especially where house prices may be more expensive in the rural areas than in London, and salaries don’t take this into account?

Please sue the comments section to discuss.

School Uniforms: Good idea or extra cost burden?

This September, schools will have had to update their websites to take account of the Education (Guidance about costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021. This was a Private Members Bill, passed last year. The provisions, although requiring more work from schools, are no doubt timely for parents where schools have taken the new Act’s sentiment and coupled it with dealing with the effects of the present cost of living crisis.

In one location I know well, one academy is offering a free blazer to every child entering Year 7. However, another academy that is changing its name this September is requiring all pupils to have the full new uniform. Blazer, tie and PE T-shirt must be purchased from the nominated supplier. For those without access to the internet, the supplier’s shop is probably two bus rides away across town. Although a faith school, the school’s website doesn’t make any obvious reference to assistance, especially for families with more than one child at the school: not much evidence of Christian Charity, although the same school has support for Ukrainian refugees.

The need for charity to start at home is emphasised by the fact that many local authorities have scrapped grants for uniforms that were once commonplace. Authorities can still make grants of up to £300, but few can afford to do so.

As a twin, I well recall the costs of kitting out two boys for secondary school at the same time. That summer, our holiday was with relatives, perhaps to save for the cost of uniforms plus accessories.

One school site I viewed recently even required a calculator priced at £16.99. no doubt it is useful for every pupil to use the same one; but it does erode the concept of ‘free education’, especially when the school’s accounts for 2021 revealed a balance of over £1 million pounds, partly helped by the delay in constructing new facilities. Might this be a case of my old bugbear, transferring revenue into capital and expecting parents to make up the deficit?

Of even more concern than the cost of school unforms to many families in rural areas is the cost of actually reaching school each day, especially if the school is just under the three-mile limit for free transport or the child is aged 16-18. The situation is compounded where there is now no local bus service or convenient rail station.

For any young person wanting to attend a further education college or be faced with a mandatory change of school in an 11-16 plus sixth form set-up, the cost can be serious. Whether it is enough to put-off some young people from studying expensive courses, where students required to purchase expensive equipment to take the course, we just don’t know.

Free school meals have received a lot of publicity, the other costs to families associated with schools, especially in rural area, where wages are often lower than the average, and some workers must live in tied-accommodation, has received less consideration.  Swop shops and second-hand stores may help, but governing bosies should be mindful of the costs of attending their schools, especially for families where several children are attending at the same time. And, then there is the in-year costs to consider, such as school trips.

DfE publishes data on funding for schools

Hard on the heels of the Treasury Select Committee report, covered by this blog yesterday, the DfE has now issued its own data on funding of schools and their pupils. The data confirms the reflections of the Treasury Select Committee. School funding statistics: 2021 to 2022 financial year – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

location	time period	Per pupil funding 2021-22 terms in £	Per pupil funding cash terms in £
England	2010-11	6370	5180
England	2011-12	6390	5270
England	2012-13	6370	5360
England	2013-14	6350	5460
England	2014-15	6390	5560
England	2015-16	6400	5600
England	2016-17	6250	5590
England	2017-18	6140	5590
England	2018-19	6180	5730
England	2019-20	6230	5920
England	2020-21	6240	6280
England	2021-22	6510	6510
England	2022-23	6780	6970

State funding for schools in England

Source: DfE

To quote the DfE’s own words about Per-pupil funding between 2010-11 to 2022-23:

On a per-pupil basis the total funding to be allocated to schools for 5–16-year-olds, in cash terms, in 2022-23 is £6,970, a 35% increase compared to £5,180 allocated per pupil in 2010-11.

After adjusting for inflation, funding per pupil was broadly flat between 2010-11 and 2015-16 at just under £6,400 in 2021-22 prices.

It then fell by 4.0% over 2016-17 and 2017-18, but subsequently increased by 1.4% over 2018-19 and 2020-21. Since then, funding increased by 4.5% over the course of 2020-21 and 2021-22 and then by a further 4.2% in 2022-23, reaching £6,780 (in 2021-22 prices).

These numbers only cover the funding of 5-16-year-olds, so don’t account for the reduction in funding for sixth form pupils during the same period. Assuming that the numbers for the most recent periods were subject to inflation deflators not based upon the current high rate of inflation, then, should inflation remain at high levels, it seems likely that the real increase projected for the year 2022-23 of £410 in 2021-22 terms may turn out not to be as great an increase in real terms. Much of the increase may also be taken up in achieving the £30,000 minimum starting salary for teachers promised by the government.

Many secondary schools are enjoying economies of scale at present as their pupil numbers increase, whereas many primary schools outside areas with new housebuilding face the opposite, with diseconomies of scale, as pupil numbers fall. A class of 25 pupils needs the same teaching support as a class of 30 pupils, but will generate somewhat less than £30,000 in income for the school.   Tough times ahead for the primary sector if the government doesn’t want to support them, especially for small rural schools that many need the protection nearly two decades ago should insufficient funding lead to potential closures.

The data used by the DfE on funding covers the following grants:

Dedicated Schools Grant (excluding early years and post-16 high-needs funding);

Grants outside the DSG to the City of London, Isles of Scilly and City Technology Colleges;

Pre-16 high-needs funding in non-maintained special schools,

Special and alternative provision free schools;

Pupil premium (all pupil ages);

Schools supplementary grant (reception to year 11);

Supplementary free school meals grant;

Teachers’ pay grant (reception to year 11);

Teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) (reception to year 11).

The DfE points out that the funding in 2022-23 is based on a combination of published funding allocations, and the budget settlement agreed at the 2021 Spending Review, and some estimates of small-grant and high needs spending.

Schools have had a tough time over recent years and many have made great strides at achieving financial stability. The risk now is of high inflation and falling rolls continuing that period of challenge into the foreseeable future.

Keep rural primary schools open

Two years ago, I wrote a blog about rural schools. Update on rural schools | John Howson (wordpress.com) Recently, the DfE published a new update of their list of maintained primary schools in rural areas. Rural primary schools designation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The designation of ‘rural’ means more stringent rules have to be followed before a case for closing such a ‘maintained’ school can be made out. However, as the Order dealing with closures was made before academies were created, I assume that such procedures don’t apply to such schools.

In the recently published DfE list, there appeared t be only one school ‘proposed for closure. The school was located in North Yorkshire, a county with a large number of small rural primary schools.

As in previous lists there were four ‘greenbelt’ schools in the London boroughs, including two in Enfield. Both of those schools are Church of England schools, as indeed are many in the whole list. This reveals something of the history of the development of education in England and the reluctance of the State to become involved in what was seen as a responsibility of families. As the philosopher J. S. Mill put it “the role of the State is to see that its citizens are educated, not to educate them itself.”

There are echoes in Mill’s statement of the dilemma facing the government today over its approach to covid. The term ‘medical socialism’ a modern take on the phrase ‘nanny state’ has begun to appear in the media to explain the demands for no more restrictions on liberties that many Conservatives at Westminster are championing in the face of rules sought to reduce the speed of the spread of covid through the population.

It is interesting that the rules on rural school closures, and the need for a list of such schools, were made by a Labour government. Whether by inertia or a recognition that many such schools are located in constituencies with Conservative MPs, no government has challenged the rules even though they interfere in the workings of the market for school places.

Of course, other policies have impact on the future of rural schools. On the one hand there are the additional cost to the taxpayer locally of providing ‘free’ transport to another more distant school if more than three miles away or reached by an ‘unsafe’ route. On the other hand, the formula for funding schools may make some rural schools financially unviable unless they are part of a larger grouping where excess costs may be subsidized.

However, the funding formula does have some ‘fudge’ factors. In the previous blog the case of Holy Island First School was cited. The latest DfE data shows the cost per pupil as £91,000 compared with £4,292 for St Philip and St James Primary School in North Oxford. Find a school (skillsfunding.service.gov.uk)

Keeping school in their communities comes at a cost, especially in rural areas, but surely that is a cost worth bearing for the sake of these communities.

School Funding webinar: some thoughts

Last evening I listened in on a webinar about school funding. There are three points that arise from the webinar I found interesting.

Firstly, schools regularly claim to have made all efficiencies possible. However, despite the efforts of the DfE to establish a recruitment web site, and of my own company TeachVac to provide a free service, recruitment spending by schools still runs into many millions of pounds each year.

The problems with the DfE vacancy site are that it requires action on behalf of schools to post vacancies and that it is unattractive to teachers. This is because it does not include both state funded and private schools, and teachers may want a site where they can find all vacancies, such as TeachVac, especially when job hunting is a challenge.

In March, after lockdown, I offered the DfE a free feed of vacancies for three months to include all the vacancies that they didn’t carry on their site found by TeachVac, but was rebuffed. I have heard nothing since.

According to my analysis, the DfE site is still only carrying a proportion of all teaching vacancies, and about 3-4% of vacancies on the DfE site at any one time are vacancies that are not for teachers. The teacher associations seem to have little or no interest in persuading their members to switch to a free site.

Secondly, there is the issue of small primary schools and falling rolls. The current Funding Formula may adversely affect such schools where the loss of only a small number of pupils will impact upon the bottom line of their budget. Closing such schools means children cannot walk or cycle to school, but must be transported by car or bus and this can impact on Council Budgets if free transport is required for the youngest pupils required to travel more than two miles to the next school. In Oxfordshire, there are a large number of small village schools and any closure might have an effect on transport costs for the County. Transporting pupils also adds to climate change issues.

Thirdly, Luke from the IFS mentioned the loss of relative funding for the schools serving deprived areas. He queried whether local government re-organisation might be part of the cause. This seems odd since, apart from Cornwall and Wiltshire, most unitary authorities are smaller than the shire counties they replaced.

In Oxfordshire, one issue is around a small concentrated area of severe deprivation in South East Oxford that is masked within a generally affluent County. As a result, the Funding Formula does not take account of the need of these schools, and there is little by way of mechanisms other than the Pupil Premium to assist with further funding.

To add insult to injury, such schools cannot raise funds from parents as is the case in the more well-off parts of the City of Oxford. The government has experimented with Opportunity Areas, and Oxfordshire’s Education Scrutiny Committee has wondered whether such a scheme might be useful locally. However, there seems to be no mechanism to recognise this issue and provide for additional funding for schools in these areas. I am reminded of the book written in the 1970s about school funding called ‘depriving the deprived’. Seemingly we have headed back in that direction despite talk of leveling up.

Update on rural schools

In December 2017, I wrote a post on this blog about the DfE’s list of rural primary schools. At that point there were four such schools within the Greater London boroughs that were designated by the DfE as ‘rural’.  In the 2019 list, published today there are now five such schools. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rural-primary-schools-designation

The two each in Hillingdon and Enfield have been joined at some point in time by Downe Primary School in Bromley, classified as being in an area of ‘Rural hamlet and isolated dwellings’. For those living in truly rural areas, the notion that somewhere within Greater London can be categorised as ‘rural’ might seem a bit of a joke. But, I am sure that for the residents using these schools that are located in what is presumably ‘green belt’ locations, the designation as ‘rural’ seems accurate. However, it is still within the TfL transport area, so pupils attending the schools from within the Greater London area can have free travel on the 146 bus, or presumably the R8 as well.

Across England, this year, the DfE has classified 3,353 primary schools as being in ‘rural’ .locations. The designation is important, as with school rolls in the primary sector now falling, and the absurdities of the National Funding Formula view of equality not yet fully understood, the added protection from closure being a ‘rural’ school provides may still be useful in the future.

However, it won’t stop closures happening. Culham Parochial Church of England School in Oxfordshire is shown in the table as, ‘open, and proposed to close’ and the County Council has now agreed that the school should close as it is no longer a viable education establishment in its own right. This follows a series of battles over its future, stretching back into at least the late 1980s. This fate also hangs over another 26 primary schools in the list, including five schools in Nottinghamshire and three in Staffordshire.

Fifteen of the 26 schools proposed for closure are designated as Church of England schools. This reveals something of the heritage of schooling in England as we approach the 150^th anniversary of State Funded Schools next year. It would be interesting to know the date when these schools, now up for closure, were first opened. There is fertile ground here for those interested in the history of education in England. I gather that this subject is being considered as a topic for an optional module in a Masters’ level degree currently being put together by the University of Buckingham.  Such units or modules already exist in some other programmes.

There are many interesting stories contained within this list of schools. Picking just two at random. The Bliss Charity School in Northamptonshire was first opened several centuries ago, and the Charity still owns the former school house built for a head teacher in the Nineteenth Century. The rent from the house is used to fund extras at the school. Holy island Church of England First School in Northumberland is federated with a school on the mainland and is shown in some DfE tables as currently having just one pupil. The school web site says that ‘Holy Island and Lowick C of E First Schools are a federation – the children study together at Lowick with the children who live on the island coming to Lowick when the tide allows.’

There are many more interesting stories within the rich tapestry of our school system. Will these be lost because of a rigid financial system that takes little or no account of communities and their needs? I hope not.