The White Paper Your Child, Your Schools, Our Future – Building a 21st Century Schools System, published last year by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, sets out the challenges faced by schools.
The paper describes the reforms that have been made to meet these, including a Pupil Guarantee and a Parent Guarantee. Significantly, the White Paper incorporated a number of ideas for local authorities to pursue in keeping small rural schools open, such as building partnerships with other schools or co-location with other services to make use of surplus space on school sites.
In this way, the White Paper builds upon a research report (also commissioned by the DCFS) called ‘Better Together’ which contained exploratory case studies of formal collaborations between small rural primary schools. The research report focused upon a number of ways that small schools could collaborate ‘formally’ – such as sharing staff, head teacher, governance or charitable trust – to improve their services to children, to remain viable and to generate better value for money.
This is important as figures from ‘EduBase’, a database of all educational establishments in England and Wales maintained by DCFS, reveals that there are approximately 2,600 small primary schools (those with one hundred or fewer pupils on the roll) in England. In rural local authorities, one-third or more of primary schools may be small.
But the viability of small rural schools is under-threat with data from the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations in England, showing that between 2004 and 2008 sixty-two village primary schools closed. More alarmingly, the National Association for Small Schools now estimates village primaries are closing at a rate of one per month. Many RSN Members have documented ongoing challenges facing rural schools.
The RSN believes schools are at the heart of rural community life and provide a national model to which urban schools should aspire. This is why the RSN opposes the closure of rural schools, except on educational grounds, and set out a roadmap to safeguard rural schools in the RSN Manifesto.
On the surface, the ‘Better Together’ Research Report combined with the ‘extended schools agenda’ and ‘wrap around childcare in primary schools’ puts schools in a position to shape the range and delivery of services they offer and to provide a varied menu of activities beyond schools hours (e.g. breakfast clubs, homework clubs, parenting programmes). In this way, schools are viewed as a point of access to services and a focal point for community members.
And yet, amid these policy documents and agendas, what is not taken into account is the ‘funding gap’ that means rural schools receive much less cash than their urban counterparts thus affecting their viability. For example, the Government’s funding formula for schools means in 2009/10 Herefordshire received £3,830 per head versus Birmingham which received £4,605 per head. ‘F40 – The Campaign for Fairer Funding in Education’ represents a group of the poorest funded education authorities in England and is campaigning to change the way in which central government allocates funding.
Taking forward work on educational funding, RSN performance director Dan Bates is establishing the magnitude of any ‘rural premium’ which may exist across a number of public services, including primary school provision. Although this work is at a preliminary stage, it demonstrates that average funding per pupil required to be met by the Local Education Authority is greater for the schools in the most sparsely populated areas – with funding per pupil varying from £3,113 per pupil in schools in towns to £3,525 per pupil at schools in sparse rural areas (village, hamlet and isolated dwellings).
Further work will isolate the drivers of funding (e.g. taking into account special educational needs funding), the levels of service available in schools and an analysis of expenditure to identify the factors that drive additional costs in more rural areas.
With a single figure fluctuation in pupil numbers having a direct impact on a rural school’s financial stability, we need to rethink what schools are and who schools are for. I would like to make three points.
Firstly, implementing some of the recommendations from the ‘Better Together’ Research Report as part of an attempt to safeguard their financial future and viability, some rural schools are now operating in a confederation. This arrangement though often financially sound raises issues around maintaining the ethos of individual schools, decision-making and accountability.
Secondly, what schools are for is about more than their ‘performance’ as measured by Ofsted inspections, league tables and exam results. Rural schools embrace the place, community and geography where they are located.
A good example of this is the ‘Exmoor Curriculum’. Developed by Dulverton Middle School in Somerset, the school uses local surroundings (i.e., the Exmoor National Park) and support from the local community to deliver the National Curriculum, offer vocational training and provide other learning opportunities such as orienteering, sailing and canoeing.
Thirdly, who schools are for should be thought of in a more expansive sense, schools should not be regarded merely as places for children to learn, open on week days from 8.45-3.30. Rather, schools should be viewed as ‘community assets’, as venues for community use during evenings, weekends and vacations (e.g. for adult learning, sports courses, internet hubs).
Schools in rural (and urban) areas should offer an inspiring learning experience for children, where they are provided with every opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of the world and the skills they need to flourish in later life. Rural schools are also central to the well-being of rural communities, particularly in places where other services such as the post office and village shops have closed.
Now, more than ever, we must all work to protect and support rural schools and ensure they have a real future.
Jessica Sellick is a rural consultant at Rose Regeneration. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .