Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Lucy Juby, Project Manager, School Organisation, introduced the report outlining the proposed requirements of the Pupil Growth Contingency Fund (PGCF) for 2018/19, which will be used to fund growth in both maintained schools and academies. Lucy highlighted the following:

(a)  £697,645 has already been committed for pupil growth in 2018/19 due to ongoing expansions and bulge years. The contingency has been increase due to upcoming required growth in secondary schools;

(b)  the current funding criteria for primary school growth was agreed in 2013. The final planned primary school expansions are now underway and the city-wide position for primary provision at first entry is good;

(c)  the increased demand for school places is moving from the primary phase into the secondary phase and a minimum of 15-17 additional forms of entry will be required city-wide, with demand projected to peak by 2022. Therefore, there is now a requirement to include provision for the funding of secondary school pupil growth. The consultation with Head Teachers on reviewing the criteria and levels of funding resulted in minimal feedback. Therefore it was recommended that a Schools Forum Sub-group should undertake a further review;

The following additional information was provided during the discussion which followed:

(d)  Trinity Catholic School has agreed to take one additional form of entry from September 2017. This is an oversubscribed school and school places are needed in the area. Places will be allocated according to Trinity’s admissions criteria;

(e)  Nottingham University Academy of Science and Technology (NUAST) is expanding its age range to admit from Year 7 which will create much needed additional school places, and The Fernwood School  is submitting a bid to the DfE for funding to expand, which is supported by the local authority, though this is still at the application stage and has not been agreed;

(f)  The pupil growth funding for 2018/19 will cover all known and committed primary expansions, with a surplus to account for secondary expansions. Consideration also needs to be given to the fact that from 2019/20, the DfE have not confirmed how pupil growth will be funded, therefore further revisions to the criteria may be required once the DfE guidance is released;

(g)  the investment in Nottingham City primary schools to deliver the required expansion programmes has resulted in good provision of places for children at first admission, in good and outstanding schools. However, there are still challenges in providing additional capacity required in some higher year groups for in-year admissions. The Council is working with schools to find solutions to this where possible;

(h)  there are greater challenges in delivering the required city-wide secondary school capacity. However, the School Organisation Team are encouraging collaborative working with all secondary schools in the city, to consider options for delivering the additional capacity requirements, based on the principles of expanding good and outstanding schools, in areas where places are needed;

(i)  the breakdown and any changes or updates to pupil growth funding allocations will continue to be reported to the Forum as a regular agenda item.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve the allocation of £1.148m to support pupil growth in 2018/19;

(2)  approve that a sub-group will undertake a review of the PGCF criteria for the funding of both primary and secondary school pupil growth. The sub-group will be required to review the potential models for the funding of pupil growth and to propose a recommended option to Schools Forum by April 2018;

(3)  approve the membership of the sub-group as Sally Coulton, David Holdsworth, David Hooker, Andy Jenkins, Judith Kemplay and David Stewart;

(4)  bring a presentation to the next Schools Forum meeting on the primary expansion programme, and principles for the secondary expansion programme;

(5)  resend the consultation on the formula for secondary expansion funding to secondary head teachers, and members to encourage other schools to respond;

(6)  note

a.  the requirement to allocate funding to academies for the period April 2018 to August 2018 as guided by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA);

b.  the amount to be allocated is £0.156m;

c.  the funding will be included on the submission of the 2018/19 Authority Pro-forma Tool sent in to the ESFA which included all school budget shares for 2018/19 and the amounts to be given out to academies for pupil growth April to August 2018;

d.  the total amount of academies’ individual school budget shares will be netted off against the pupil growth given out for this period and the authority’s Dedicated Schools Grant for 2018/19 will be adjusted accordingly.