School Finance
Most parents actively engaged in the education of their child, will have very little knowledge of how schools are funded. Some may have heard of the National Funding Formula (NFF), but what exactly is it? How will it affect your child’s education?
The NFF is the method that the Government expects all local authorities to soon follow when deciding how much money should be given to English state schools each financial year. Under the National Funding Formula there are a number of different factors that are taken into account when setting schools budgets, the biggest being per-pupil funding.
As a small rural Voluntary Controlled (VC) Church of England primary school, our school budget, which comes from West Sussex County Council, is relatively small when compared to many schools in neighbouring Lindfield and Haywards Heath. There are no employees in the school earning over £100k.
The School Information (England) Regulations 2020, which took effect on 1st January 2021, require that all maintained schools publish this information on their website along with a link to the Government webpage which is dedicated to the school on the schools financial benchmarking service. To see this information for St. Peter's C.E. Primary School, please follow the link below:
Schools Financial Benchmarking Service
Over the years we have been incredibly fortunate that additional funds have been raised by our FOSPS, the Friends of St. Peter’s School. This voluntary group of parents and staff work tirelessly with the sole aim of raising funds to improve the quality of schooling for all pupils at St. Peter’s. Over the years, the hardworking team of volunteers have run cake stalls, school discos, film nights, quiz nights, tea parties, Christmas Fairs and Summer Parties. Not only have these events raised significant funds for new laptops, iPads and playground works, but they have also been a fantastic way in which to unite families, friends and staff of St. Peter’s with a shared sense of purpose. With our school library refurbishment project still ongoing, this year the FOSPS face new challenges seeking to raise money for our school whilst adhering to social distancing measures.
For more information about our FOSPS, please visit their dedicated page of our website.