Charge parents £500 per year to boost school funds

[noblegiraffe]

A government advisor has suggested that schools plug the ever-widening chasm in their school finances by charging parents £500 per year.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/charge-parents-ps500-a-year-boost-school-funds-says-former-adviser

MrEBear it's a false economy to cut pre school funding. Early years education is so important, there is so much evidence to support this e g the EPPE study.

There's also some more here

"We have found overwhelming evidence that children’s life chances are most heavily predicated on their development in the first five years of life. It is family background, parental education, good parenting and the opportunities for learning and development in those crucial years that together matter more to children than money, in determining whether their potential is realised in adult life” www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/180884/DFE-00274-2011.pdf

Cutting preschools funding is only a false economy if you consider increasing the attainment gap to be a negative thing.

This government and the previous one have given little indication that they are interested in reducing those gaps.

Their policies seem calculated to reduce the liklihood that well off dim children will lose out to their brighter but poorer peers.

I think you've hit the nail on the head
doingitfine
😟

Well, obviously this is a fantastic idea if you want to ensure the schools with an affluent intake get better funding than the schools with an impoverished intake of children. Small class sizes for the rich, large classes and a dearth of subjects offered for the poor. Nice, affluent area = people want to hire the facilities in your well maintained school, bringing in still more cash. Poor area = no-one wants to pay to hire your leaky hall with the rotten floorboards. The rich all lock together even more and the poor get left behind in the ghetto.