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Changes to education funding will put rural schools at risk

Rural schools may not survive the move to funding per pupil and the loss will be felt by everyone in their communities - teachers and parents alike
Mother and two young children walking down a country lane
What impact will school funding reform have on students, parents and teachers in rural communities? Photograph: Robert Morris/Alamy

Schools in many rural areas could simply disappear in the next few years after a significant change to the government's lump-sum funding model takes effect. This change will be felt by everyone in rural communities and is damaging to the rural economy.

The government's new national funding formula aims to raise competition among schools by rewarding schools that can attract more pupils. Each school will receive a lump-sum and an amount related to the number of pupils. The lump sum is to be determined by each local authority, but the government has imposed the new condition that every school in its area must receive the same lump sum, regardless of size, location or age of pupils. This is forcing councils, often against their will, to reduce the funding for small rural schools and threatens their viability.

School funding formula in brief:
A much greater weighting towards the pupil element.
A deprivation-related allocation that can be added to the pupil element.
The removal of the criterion relating to the size of the school.
Every school to be allocated a lump sum to cover costs such as headteacher's salary, administrative staff, school meals and building costs

If rural schools were to close the impact on villages and rural communities would be great, particularly in sparsely populated areas where there might not be a primary school for many miles. Pre-school and primary teachers will lose their jobs and will be forced to leave their villages to find work elsewhere, and with them will go the areas' economic viability as families follow suit. How many potential entrepreneurs will choose to establish their new business in a village with no school within reach? There is plenty of evidence that few parents want young children to travel many miles to distant schools and pre-schools.

In conversations I've been having with rural schools, headteachers are warning that the comparatively low priority being given to the lump sum element of the formula, as a result of this new constraint on councils' freedom to allocate funding, will have the unintended consequence of leading some small rural schools towards an unviable position. Some face cuts of 30% or more, after an initial two-year transition period. One head wrote to me that rural schools are "staring down the barrel of a significant reduction in our budget due to this new formula" and that "we cannot be silent nor can we continue to put on a brave face and try to make ends meet when our budgets are under constant attack" with closures inevitable after the transition period ends.

In one respect, this is the government's intention – to make efficiency savings by closing higher cost schools in a quasi-market. But in scattered rural areas where there is little alternative but to attend the local primary school, competition is a less relevant issue than the viability of the school and its presence in the community.

How can we make sure schools are safeguarded and this policy is rural-proofed? To prevent school closures, central government should allow local authorities to vary the lump sum where a small rural school's viability is under threat. This would accord with the government's stated commitments to localism and to supporting rural communities, and would be cost-neutral.

The government's Rural Statement (published in September 2012) announced a "contract with rural areas, so they can hold us to account on our promise to grow the rural economy and support rural communities." There's no better place to start than by improving support for rural schools, which in many cases are the heart of their communities.

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE is director of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal and professor of planning at Newcastle University.



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