This week I report on confirmation of additional financial support provided by the DfE in 2023/24, a free webinar exploring the Ofsted Leadership and Management judgement, a new consultation on elective home education, confirmation that schools can and should share their RSHE curriculum materials with parents and publication of the DfE’s position statement on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Additional support for schools in financial difficulty in 2023/24
In July the government announced £40 million of one-off funding available in 2023/24 to help schools “facing the greatest financial challenges” as part of its teacher pay deal. This week it was confirmed that Academies will have access to £20 million and can apply to the ESFA for help, whilst the remaining £20 million will cover schools overseen by local authorities who have aggregated school-level deficits as a proportion of their total maintained schools’ income above 1%.

In reality only 35 local authorities will benefit from this financial support and that includes
North Tyneside, who will receive £1,868,147. The DfE expects the funding to be allocated on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the severity of the school’s position and prioritising those in greatest need. The funding is not solely intended to cover schools which are in deficit as a result of the 2023 teachers’ pay award. It is to support schools facing substantial overall financial challenges, which may be driven by factors other than teachers’ pay. Local authorities should report to their schools forum on how they are using the money.

Governors for Schools Webinar on Thursday 16 November 2023 from 8 to 9am – Exploring the Ofsted Leadership and Management judgement
In conjunction with Better Governor, this free webinar will focus on the Leadership and Management judgement within Ofsted assessments and how governors can be confident that Leadership and Management within their setting is strong. To register please use this link to the Governors for Schools website.

Consultation on elective home education
The DfE is consulting on changes to its non-statutory guidance for councils and parents on elective home education. As the guidance is non-statutory it doesn’t change the legal duty on parents to provide a suitable education, nor the duty on councils to check they are doing so and take action if they are not.

Whilst the current guidance suggests councils may choose to operate voluntary registration schemes, the proposed guidance recommends local authorities maintain voluntary registers of children who are not in school, including those electively home educated and missing education. It also suggests councils develop information sharing agreements with GPs and police to help identify those at risk of harm. As well as proposing to update the guidance to state that a suitably educated child should be literate in English and numerate appropriate to the child’s age, ability and aptitude and any SEN they may have.

Schools can share RSHE curriculum materials with parents
The Education Secretary wrote to all schools in England on Tuesday to make clear that they can and should share relationships, sex and health (RSHE) curriculum materials with parents. The letter makes clear that companies providing teaching resources cannot use copyright law to forbid schools from sharing materials, and any attempt to do so through contract terms would be unenforceable and void.

Publication of the DfE’s position on the use of AI
Yesterday the DfE published its position on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Google Bard, in the education sector.

The statement is informed by the Government’s white paper on a pro-innovation approach to AI regulation and follows the Government’s announcement to set up an expert Frontier AI Taskforce to help the UK adopt the next generation of safe AI.