The issue

There has been 15 years with no overall growth in school spending. This squeeze on school resources is effectively without precedent in post-war UK history.
Schools are now facing new and significant cost pressures e.g. surging energy prices, covid-related costs, falling primary pupil numbers, the National Insurance increase, and pressures due to significant underfunding of SEND.
Changes to the government’s national funding formula (NFF) have seen a redistribution of funding away from schools serving the most deprived communities in recent years.
Funding for pupils with special educational needs (SEND) is in crisis, with overall High Needs budget deficits estimated to be more than £2billion and growing
The value of pupil premium funding designed to support the most disadvantaged pupils has fallen in real-terms since 2015.
The government has only invested a small fraction of the covid recovery funding that its own recovery commissioner said would be required.
Between 2009-10 and 2021-22, capital spending declined by 25% in cash terms, and 29% when adjusted for inflation.
Specific types of schools including small schools and maintained nursery schools remain under extreme financial pressure and many of facing the real risk of closure.

What we want to see

The government needs to be more ambitious for schools and set out a proper funding plan that addresses the 15 funding squeeze.
The government needs to offer more support for schools experiencing severe financial pressures as a result of rising energy costs.
The government should set out a proper long-term capital funding plan to bring all schools up to ‘good’ condition.
The government should commit to a truly ambitious recovery plan based on the work of its own recovery commissioner.
The government should commit to at least restoring pupil premium funding in real-term terms, and increasing the Early Years Pupil Premium to reach parity with the primary pupil premium.
A consultation on the long-term future of the approach to maintained nursery school funding should be launched without delay.
The government must use the ling-awaited SEND review to develop a truly needs-led approach to SEND funding.
Sufficient and sustainable funding for small schools.

What we want you to do

Convene an MPs roundtable in your region (see our briefing document on how here)
Write to your MP using our template letter
Share the PowerPoint and other resources (see below) with your school leader networks and governing body
Let us know when you plan to run local campaign activity so that we can help you promote the event and support you
Promote your campaigning work across Twitter using the campaign hashtags (#) and including @NAHTnews
Get active in your NAHT branch
If your colleagues aren’t members of NAHT already, encourage them to join

Our conference motion

“Conference instructs National Executive to develop a national fair funding campaign to press government to provide a sufficient overall level of funding to meet the needs of all pupils, through the national funding formula and the high needs national funding formula. This is required now to enable schools to set budgets from 2022-2023. It would allow them to meet all their statutory responsibilities and provide an extended curriculum offer that supports all children and young people to thrive academically, socially, physically and spiritually.

Conference further instructs National Executive to campaign for an increase in capital funding that will address the nation’s decrepit school estate, to ensure that school buildings and grounds are safe, fit for purpose and appropriate for the needs of the 21st century.”

Useful links

MP roundtable resources

Relevant articles and reports

NAHT renews efforts to secure the future of maintained nursery schools

Maintained nursery schools have a critical role to play in the delivery of high-quality early years education, but their future has been left uncertain by the government’s new approach to early years funding. The new national funding formula for the early years that was introduced in April 2017 set out one common early years rate in each local authority for private voluntary and independent (PVI) nursery and nursery classes, based on a view that whilst PVIs have lower staffing costs for unqualified staff but higher fixed costs as they are smaller than primary schools, primary schools have higher staffing costs for teachers but can spread fixed costs across a whole primary school.

Maintained nursery schools lose out on both counts, having highly qualified staff working in smaller settings making for a double whammy of high staffing and fixed costs. The Department for Education therefore initially proposed to provide an additional £56 million to support them for the first two years of the new early years formula, but eventually agreed to extend this to March 2020, the end of the comprehensive spending review, after the extensive press and public pressure led by NAHT and Early Education.

On 4 July, we are relaunching our campaign in partnership with charity Early Education. We are seeking:

To secure a long-term commitment to additional funding for maintained nursery school provision beyond the April 2020 cliff edge and also
For the DfE to develop a national funding formula for maintained nursery schools that will recognise that they are schools, secure their long-term sustainability and provide greater consistency of funding nationally.

Our campaigning leaflet sets out how NAHT members working in maintained nursery schools can support our campaign by engaging parents and local politicians and there is also a model template letter for members to write to their MPs which you can find below.

Join us in campaigning to protect some of our best early years settings.