News

Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• A Pack of Wolves and One Lost Sheep!

  Thu 23 Mar 2017

  Yes ‘The Dassett Wolves’ Ms Thomas, Ms Nygaard-Brogge, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Andersson) are back in training for the Summer 10km Wolf Run at Stanford Hall on June 3^rd and this year they are very kindly taking along a lost sheep and weak link – me!!

  I have already started training and am slowly getting fitter and better at running (slowly!), however I am determined not to let the team down! 

  If you would like to sponsor them they will be raising money to buy another new Interactive Clevertouch Screen and there will an online donation page and sponsor form to complete – more details to follow!

• School Funding

  Fri 10 Mar 2017

   

  Friday 10^th March 2017

   

  Dear Parent or Guardian,

  School Funding

   

  You may have seen a number of stories in the press around school funding. There have been worrying headlines and we felt it important that we let you know, as far as we are able at this stage, how this will affect our local schools.

   

  School budgets across the country have been under pressure for some time. The senior leadership teams at each school within our Cluster of local schools, have been grappling with current funding challenges, which include:

  • managing the additional costs to schools of local government pension scheme pension contributions increasing and apprenticeship levy charges of £2200 per school
  • managing a £30 per pupil reduction in our budgets due to the removal of the Education Services Grant
  • National policy changes to the way in which schools are to be funded (this relates to the Early Years National Funding Formula which has an impact from the 1^st April and also the National Funding Formula for all schools which is due to be implemented from 2018/19).

  This is leading to a number of tough decisions being made, as the average reduction in budgets across our Cluster Schools is -£77,420 (or across our Cluster Primary Schools is -£39,014). For each of our schools, the impact of any future reduction in budgets is extremely concerning.

  Our schools are not alone. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has shown that more than half of school leaders felt that their budget would be untenable by 2018/19. The National Audit Office estimate a £3 billion real terms cut across all phases and in all schools. This doesn’t just affect us.

  The recent headlines have been caused by a proposed new funding formula for schools, designed to create a fairer allocation. However with increasing costs placed onto all schools, the new formula will not bring the benefits that we had hoped to see.  The School Cuts website (schoolcuts.org.uk), by analysing Department for Education data, projects that schools in our local authority will lose £28,094,220 in total.

   

  As a group of head teachers and governors, we will continue to work hard to ensure that any cuts have the least impact on teaching possible. However, rising costs and a frozen budget mean that tough decisions will have to be taken. We cannot guarantee that such cuts will not impact on teaching, despite doing our best to prevent this.

   

  We are determined to make our voice heard and, if you also wish to express your concerns about this unacceptable situation, request that you visit the website schoolcuts.org.uk to sign a petition to ensure that school funding does not reduce in real terms, potentially affecting your child’s future education. There is also the opportunity for you to send a letter to your MP requesting that they raise the issue in Parliament.

   

  Please be assured that we will take the utmost care with budgets, to ensure all the money we have is spent effectively on your children. We are also letting the local authority and government know just how serious the funding crisis has become.

  We promise to let you know you in plenty of time if our budget means we’ll have to take a significant decision on staffing or activities and have sent this letter to every family within our Cluster of Schools as listed at the top of the page.

   

  Yours sincerely,

   

  Mrs Hine

   

   

  Ettington C of E Primary School                         

  Hampton Lucy C of E Primary School

  Kineton C of E Primary School                            

  Kineton High School

  Moreton Morrell C of E Primary School           

  Temple Herdewyke Primary School

  The Dassett C of E Primary School                    

  Tysoe C of E Primary School

  Wellesbourne C of E Primary School

  

• Data Collection & Parent Questionnaires

  Thu 02 Mar 2017

  We have sent the data collection forms and parent questionnaires home to those who did not receive them at the Parents’ Evenings.

  Please send them back by Friday 10th so that Mrs Stuart can start the long job of entering the data onto the system and we can start to collate responses for the questionnaire.   Many thanks.