Funding drops at 24% when a young person moves into a sixth form

For more than ten years, the Department for Education has worked hard to protect school budgets but this has often been at the post-16 education. There are mixed views about whether the schools have really been protected but is undeniable that there is a drop in funding after GCSEs. There are, unfortunately, no official figures on funding per student at different ages but we, at AoC, think the drop is 24%. Here are our calculations. If you would like to correct or challenge them, please contact Julian_gravatt@aoc.co.uk Step 1: Funding per student in Year 11 (national average, including all items but not the pupil premium) Funding per secondary student aged 11-16 in 2017-18 = £6,200(source: IFS 2018 annual report on education spending) Funding is higher at Key Stage 4 than Key Stage 3The DfE's national school funding formula uses existing data to set a KS4 rate which is 14% higher than the KS2 rate (£4,312 base rate compared to £3,797)Applying this 14% differential to the IFS figure produces a Key Stage 3 figure of £5,817 (for the three years 7,8 and 9) and a Key Stage 4 figure of £6,693 (for Years 10 and 11) Average funding nationally per Year 11 pupil is £6,693 Step 2: Funding per student in Year 12 (national average, including all items, pupil premium stops at 16 so not relevant) Funding per 16-18 student in a college in 2017-18 = £5,285(source: adjustments we've made to the figure in IFS's 2018 annual report on education spending to exclude 19 year olds and high needs documented in this paper technical note on IFS calculation of 16-18 funding 17 sep 2018.docx technical note on IFS calculation of 16-18 funding 17 sep 2018.docx (DOCX,52.96 KB) Funding per 16-18 student in a school sixth form in 2017-18 = £4,890(same source as above; headline funding per school sixth form student lower because they almost all take classroom courses and are less likely to be disadvantaged) Numbers of 16-18 students in colleges and schools in 2017-18 was 616,850 and 452,950 respectively Calcuating an average uses this sum: (616,850*5,285 + 452,950*4,890)/(616,850+452,950) = 5,118 Average funding nationally per Year 12 pupil is £5,118 Step 3: Calculate the funding drop at age 16 It's 24% because 5118/6693 = 0.76