FOUR out of 10 mainstream secondary schools in England are in line for a pound;375,000 government grant to improve their leadership. But union leaders say needy schools will miss out.
A total of 1,400 secondary schools will qualify for the leadership incentive grant, promoted in the Government’s workforce reforms this week, but the rest will get nothing.
The grant is worth pound;125,000 a year for three years from next September and allows heads to “take radical action” to improve school leadership. It will be paid to secondary schools in Excellence in Cities areas, excellence clusters and education action zones.
It will also go to secondaries outside these areas in “challenging circumstances”, with 35 per cent of pupils on free school meals, or a five A*-C GCSE rate of less than 30 per cent in 2001 or 2002.
David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “If you are on the wrong side of the borderline you could miss out even though your ‘challenging circumstances’ do not look very different,” he said.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said:
“Less than half of disadvantaged pupils live in poor areas. The money would be better spent on improving the core budgets of secondaries.”
Keith Mitchell, education director at Durham County Council, said: “Our secondary schools face challenging circumstances like their neighbours across the region but only a few will get the resources.”
VICTIM OF ITS SUCCESS
HEADTEACHER Andy Wright says his school is going to miss out yet again. Bedlingtonshire community high in Northumberland serves a deprived catchment area around a former mining town.
But Northumberland is not an Excellence in Cities area and has no excellence clusters. There is one education action zone nearby but it does not include Bedlington.
The 14-18 school has a low free meals take-up because older teenagers tend not to claim them. And although for four years its five A*-C rate at GCSE was less than 30 per cent, this has now risen to a record 42 per cent.
Mr Wright said: “A grant could have helped us employ another deputy head for monitoring and mentoring which would have given us another 5 per cent A*-Cs at GCSE.”
The Department for Education and Skills said the money was aimed at needy schools and that it was expanding excellence clusters over the next two years.
