The new Prime Minister is in office and ready to address the significant challenges facing our country at home and abroad.
Like myself, she was elected on a manifesto committed to supporting our young people by investing in our schools, an important point not just at the start of a new school term but all year round.
This Conservative manifesto pledge and the work it commits to remains.
At the end of the last school year, the Department for Education confirmed that funding for schools in Crawley is set to increase in 2023-24 by 4.5 per cent, to almost £100 million.
This record funding for Crawley schools will provide vital resources to raise attainment, provide support to pupils and students, increase teacher pay, and continue to address the important challenges of Covid pandemic response and recovery.
All our young people should be able to receive a top-class education, wherever they grow up in the country; central to this is ensuring that schools are given the support they need.
The Department for Education continues to provide year-on-year increases to school funding. Indeed, the total core school budget for England will rise to £56.8 billion by 2024-25; a cash increase of some £7 billion compared with 2021-22.
Funding for mainstream schools through the National Funding Formula is increasing by 1.9 per cent per pupil compared to 2022-23. Together with the funding increases seen in 2022-23, funding through the NFF will be 7.9 per cent higher per pupil in 2023-24, compared to 2021-22.
Government have also confirmed that high needs funding – support for children with the most severe special educational needs and disabilities – is increasing by a further £570 million (6.3 per cent) in 2023-24 on top of the £2.6 billion increase over the last three years.
This will bring the total high needs budget to exceed £9.7 billion, with all local authorities to receive at least a 5 per cent increase per head of their 2-18 population compared with 2022-23 allocations.
By giving schools full resources and backing needed they can continue to educate and support our young people.
As the school year commences there is also great news for Holy Trinity in Gossops Green who have been successful in the Government’s School Rebuilding Programme, more exciting news on these plans will follow soon.
Henry Smith MP
