Further to Isle of Wight Head Teachers accusing the Government of ‘breaking schools, people and communities’, the chairs of Isle of Wight school governing bodies have written to Justine Greening setting out the case for more funding. Ed
Dear Ms Greening,
In November 2016, I wrote a plea to our local MP, Mr Andrew Turner in respect of the funding crisis in education and asking for assistance from him in relation to this. I have enclosed a copy of this letter (see below) as the general content is still relevant despite the rapidly changing nature of education.
I have now met with Mr Turner and he suggested that I write to you as secretary of state to present a case to the DfE that there are special reasons why the Island deserves a larger proportion under the new National Funding Formula consultation. I hope that he has already spoken to you about this matter to enable you to be foresighted of the current issues on the Island and the reasons behind this letter.
In writing to you I have the support of various Governing body chairs from across the Isle of Wight who are listed at the end of this letter as signatories, together with Trustees of the Island Innovation Trust, who also support the views expressed.
As Governing Body chairs for schools on the Island, we wish to highlight three principal reasons as to why the Isle Of Wight deserves additional financial support beyond what is being offered through the revised funding formula.
1) There is no BESD (Behavioural, emotional and social difficulties) provision on the Island. This results in students who, for a variety of reasons, find it hard to access mainstream education. In other parts of the country, specialist provision is provided to enable these students to successfully access education in a tailored way to help them reach their potential.
On the Island, due to a lack of specialist provision, many of these children are retained in main stream education, meaning that money is spent (rightly so) in helping all students to achieve their potential, stretching budgets that are already tight. This applies to both our Primary as well as our Secondary schools here on the Island.
2) There are no recognised Outstanding schools within the secondary provision on the Island and just one outstanding primary school. Whilst there are many improvements on the Island, it is always vital for staff continuing professional development, to have the opportunity to visit Outstanding provision and learn best practice. For our staff and senior leaders, this will require a trip to the mainland. This results in not only travel costs, but most importantly time out of school to facilitate this.
This is different to schools on the mainland who are able to travel locally to learn best practice and to enable professional CPD to continue. For our Primary schools, this is also of relevance to ensure that best practice and staff development is available to all Teachers on the Island.
3) Recruitment of high quality staff in certain subject areas has added difficulty on the Island. Whilst I recognise that attracting people to the teaching profession is becoming more difficult due to the funding crisis, on the Island attracting staff means that for practical reasons, they will need to move to the Island. This is a huge decision for any family and results in unique difficulties in recruitment.
There are many other factors and reasons why the Isle of Wight should be recognised as having unique challenges and difficulties and these may be alluded to by others on the Island with or without the support of our MP. We all certainly feel that in comparison the Island is deserving of more funding to help education across the Island and enable our children to have the best opportunities to achieve to their potential.
As Chairs of Governors, we jointly welcome the opportunity to invite you to the Island to visit our schools and to discuss the contents of this letter further.
We look forward to your response.
Kind regards,
Joe Finch, Chair of the Governing Body for Carisbrooke College and Medina College
Matt Atkins, Chair of the Governing Body for Medina House School, Newport
Nigel Blair, Chair of the Governing Body for Holy Cross Catholic Primary School, East Cowes
Carla Bradshaw, Chair of the Governing Body for the Federation of Shalfleet and Yarmouth Primary Schools
Rob Ellis, Chair of the Governing Body for Haylands Primary School, Ryde
Viv Garrett, Chair of the Governing Body for Northwood Primary School Academy Trust
Jacqui Lamb, Chair of the Governing Body for St Helens Primary School
Ian Looseley, Vice Chair of the Governing Body St Saviours Primary School, Totland
Katrina Rigby, Chair of the Governing Body for the Federation of St Mary’s and St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic
Primary Schools
Sue Wheeler, Chair of the Governing Body for St George’s Special School, Newport
Image: joe57spike under CC BY 2.0
