This week I report on the guaranteed funding for primary and secondary schools for next year, the publication of the Opportunity North East delivery plan and updated DfE guidance on the statutory policies schools and academies must have.

Guaranteed minimum funding levels for all schools
New legislation laid in Parliament on Wednesday guarantees every secondary school at least £5k per pupil next year, and every primary school at least £3,750 per pupil, with funding per pupil for primary schools rising to £4k the following year.

Parents will now also be able to find out how much extra funding their local school will attract next year using a new, easy-to-use website which allows anyone to look up allocations under the National Funding Formula for schools in England for 2020-21.

Publication of the Opportunity North East (ONE) delivery plan
At the Schools North East Academies Conference held on Wednesday, the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson announced the Government would not stop in its drive to transform the lives and prospects of young people across the North East.

This comes as the Department published its Opportunity North East (ONE) delivery plan, setting out a series of ambitions to deliver on the programme’s long-term commitment to level up on educational outcomes and unleash the potential of young people in the region.

Updated guidance on statutory policies for schools and academy trusts
This week the DfE has updated its guidance on the policies and documents that governing bodies and proprietors of schools must have. It has:

• added a link in section 8 ‘Relationship and sex education’ to statutory guidance published in June last year which schools must follow from September 2020;
• added references to specify if policies also apply to maintained or non-maintained nursery schools;
• updated the ‘Register of business interests of headteachers and governors’ section to reference that it is a live document;
• updated the ‘Capability of staff’ section to reflect that academies can set their own terms for approval.

This week I highlight the latest series of free webinars offered by Governors for Schools, the announcement that LA maintained schools can join the insurance scheme already available to academies, that free sanitary products are now available to order for all schools and colleges and notice that the Education Secretary has outlined pay increases for teachers to the STRB.

New programme of free webinars for governors
Supported by Lloyds Banking Group, Governors for Schools has announced another series of free webinars for governors as follows:

• Safer recruitment (with Better Governor) on Thursday 30 January 2020 from 8 to 9 am – will look at what governors need to know about safer recruitment procedures, criminal record and other vetting checks, and the training governors and staff involved in recruitment should undertake.
• Managing exclusions (with The Key for School Governors) on Tuesday 11 February from 12:30 to 1:30 pm – will set out boards’ specific legal duties in relation to pupil exclusions. Explore how boards can monitor exclusion levels effectively. This can help to provide assurance that exclusion is being used proportionately and in a non-discriminatory manner.
• Behaviour and attitudes in the new Ofsted framework (with Better Governor) on Thursday 27 February from 8:00 to 9:00 am – will explore in detail this element of Ofsted’s recently updated inspection framework. The new judgement covers behaviour, attendance, exclusion and attitudes to learning.
• Reputation management (with Irwin Mitchell Solicitors) on Tuesday 10 March from 12:30 to 1:30 pm – will look at how to manage a school’s reputation when the world of social media reigns: when to engage and when not to engage.
• Personal Development in the new Ofsted framework (with Better Governor) on Thursday 26 March from 8 to 9 am – will explore in detail this element of Ofsted’s recently updated inspection framework. The new judgement covers many aspects of personal development including confidence, character, personal safety and readiness for the next stage of education.

If you are interested in signing up for any of the webinars listed above please use this link.

LA maintained schools to be allowed to join the RPA from April 2020
This week the Government published its response to the consultation carried out late last year on whether the existing risk protection arrangement scheme for academies and free schools could be extended to maintained schools.

From mid-March LA maintained schools will be able to join the RPA using the DfE’s online portal. The cover will start from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 and whilst voluntary, could provide savings for maintained schools as cover costs just £18 per pupil.

Free sanitary products for all schools and colleges
From Monday this week, schools and colleges are able to order a range of sanitary products from supplier phs Group, giving pupils easy access, helping break down stigmas and ensure no young person’s education is disrupted.

Schools and colleges should have received an activation email from the phs Group on Monday which will enable them to order products from the phs Group portal – a range of products will be available so that schools and colleges can offer choice to young people, including eco-friendly options.

Teachers set for biggest sustained pay increase since 2005
Under proposals submitted on Tuesday to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has outlined plans to increase starting salaries to at least £26,000 in September 2020, with those in outer and inner London to rise to £30,000 and £32,000 respectively. Experienced teachers, heads and school leaders would see an above inflation pay increase of 2.5% to their pay ranges, with early career teachers’ salaries increasing by up to 6.7%, supporting an attractive career path for the whole profession.

The STRB will now consider the Department’s proposals and respond with their recommendations later in the year.

This week I highlight the latest school governance update from the DfE and news that Ofsted is in talks with the Government about running longer inspections to improve schools that have been ‘stuck’ i.e. not judged good or better since 2006.

Latest DfE School Governance update
Yesterday the DfE published its third governance update for LA maintained schools and for academies. Lord Agnew, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System, provided a new year message indicating the updates would be published approximately twice per term.

He also advised he was looking forward to publishing the response to the consultation on financial transparency which included levelling up the reporting requirements for local authority schools and academies. The update provides the following:

• Encouragement to participate in the consultation on the removal of the outstanding exemption.
• Encouragement to take part in the NFER and DfE survey of governance in the sector (5000 schools across England have been invited to take part) with the deadline for responding extended to 24 January.
• Information highlighting the clerking competency framework which demonstrates the importance of professional clerking and the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to deliver it.
• An opportunity for clerks to speak to the DfE governance policy team to help develop their policy work.
• A reminder that seven organisations have been contracted to provided funded training and development programmes for Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Chairs and Clerks.
• Information on how to access the DfE’s financial benchmarking service to compare how much a school is spending on agency staff compared with similar schools.
• A reminder that keeping governor details on GIAS (Get Information About Schools) up to date will ensure they receive governance update email alerts direct. For governors in academies this year’s Academies Financial Handbook set out a new requirement for all academy trusts to provide a direct email address for all their members and trustees in the governance section of GIAS.

Ofsted in talks with the Government to run longer inspections to improve ‘stuck schools’
New research from Ofsted has found that 415 schools have not been judged as good or better since 2006 and have had at least four full inspections during that time. Common characteristics of these “stuck” schools included that they were resistant to change and were “chaotic” with one school having had 14 different headteachers in 10 years.

Ofsted has said it is “well-placed” to help these schools but that it needs to “increase the depth of diagnosis” it gives. Ofsted is now in talks with the Government over funding a trial of “longer, deeper” inspections with the aim of “not passing judgement but enabling support to improve”.

This week I highlight a new Government consultation on removing the Ofsted outstanding exemption, the announcement of six new Teaching School hubs and the latest Ofsted blog focusing on making curriculum decisions in the best interests of children.

Government consultation on the removal of the outstanding exemption
Some schools and colleges delivering publicly-funded education and training, which were rated outstanding by Ofsted at their last inspection, are legally exempt from further routine Ofsted inspection. In some cases this has meant that some schools and colleges have not been inspected for over a decade.

Today the DfE has opened a consultation seeking views on the removal of the exemption and under the proposals all outstanding schools and colleges will be brought back into a regular inspection cycle, with Ofsted visiting every 4 to 5 years. The consultation closes on 24 February 2020 and subject to the outcome, the Government intends to remove the exemption with effect from September 2020.

Announcement of six new Teaching School Hubs
On Tuesday the Schools Minister announced six successful new Teaching School Hubs to support struggling schools. Schools will benefit from a three-year programme of support, with each of the six successful schools acting as a regional hub and will receive funding to support between 200 to 300 other schools in the local area.

The aim is to give struggling schools direct access to expertise from school leaders with a track record of improving challenging schools. Support could include delivering tailored professional development for teachers, hosting observations and visits or deploying system leaders to offer advice and guidance to local schools.

The six successful new Teaching School Hubs are:

• North: Harrogate Grammar School and Red Kite Learning Trust
• Lancashire and West Yorkshire: Copthorne Primary School and Exceed Academies Trust
• East Midlands and Humber: Silverdale School and Chorus Education Trust
• East of England and North East London: Harris Academy Chafford Hundred and Harris Federation
• East of England and North East London: Saffron Walden County High School and Saffron Academy Trust
• South West: Kingsbridge Community College

Latest Ofsted blog on making curriculum decisions in the best interests of children
In a blog published on the Ofsted website today, Sean Harford, Ofsted’s national director for education discusses how inspectors will be judging the curriculum and whether length of key stage matters. He said it was “simply not the case” that Ofsted was opposed to lengthened key stage fours, and schools “do not automatically get marked down if their Key Stage 3 is less than three academic years long”.