Swavesey Primary School Parent Portal - Newsletter 89 (09.02.2024)

Updates from Mrs Norden

It is the time of the financial year for us to set our budget, which involves considering implications for the new academic year. Yet again we find ourselves underfunded for the increase in costs in all areas.

As you may be aware from previous information shared, we are a school that has been historically underfunded and under the more recently introduced funding formula now only receive the mandatory minimum per pupil funding figure. Due to the historical underfunding, after the general funding rates have been applied, we still have to be ‘topped up’ in order to reach that minimum per pupil amount.

We have seen our utilities costs increase by almost 75% this financial year and the average increase of other expenditure is 8-10%.

Over the past two years, staff pay has increased in excess of 7% each year, predominantly unfunded due to either no funding grant being given to cover certain staff groups or a grant which fell short of the total needed.

Reception and Key stage 1 class sizes are restricted to 30, quite rightly, but we have 123 pupils in this group, meaning we have to fund 5 classes with no funding for the 27 missing pupils to staff the classes. Under a previous government, schools were given ‘missing pupil funding’ to support with this.

The minimum per pupil funding has increased by 4.5% for 24/25, but it still falls short of the 8-10% needed for the coming year.

We have streamlined and reduced non-employee spend as much as possible over the past few years – whilst the whole time having increased devolved responsibility for resourcing. The only way we are able to submit a balanced budget will be by losing more staff. We reduced our staff base for this academic year (23/24) and need to make further cuts for this coming academic year (24/25). We also can only provide basic IT and other resources for learning with the help of significant fundraising by parents and school staff.

We have written to Anthony Browne, our local MP, to petition him to urge the chancellor to address the underfunding in the spring budget as a matter of urgency. We hope you may support us, and other schools, by doing the same. To help with this we have created a template letter for you to use, which is attached to this newsletter email link. You can also find it on the 'Letters home' page which can be accessed here.

For more positive news please read our latest news article, see the themed lunch details for this coming week and check out the latest PTA event - all of which can be found below. I am hoping for smarties too!

Please don't forget to complete our information gathering form about an opportunity for parents and carers to join us for a workshop on how we teach reading in school, which hopefully will support reading at home, followed by an opportunity to join your children to read with them. If you missed the email containing the link you can access the short form by clicking here.

Finally from me today, Premier Education are looking to work alongside us to see if there is a viable demand to offer their Multi-Sport Holiday Club provision from the school. If you would be interested, please complete the short survey they have created by Friday 16th February - https://forms.gle/yF1k4paEdQQe2Tph9

_{Anna-Claire Norden}

_Headteacher