In Recent News

  We end February with items from the EFA Planner and a couple of announcements made by the EFA shortly before the half term break – just in case you missed them. The EFA are also expected to announce funding for 2015-16 to individual academies over the next few weeks through the EFA Information Exchange.   From EFA Business Planner No actions for Academies. EFA:

• Pays year 7 (Y7) catch-up premium for 2014 to 2015
• Publishes 2015 to 2016 budget forecast return online form
• Confirms outcome of 2014 to 2015 pupil number adjustment exercise to academies and free schools on estimated pupil number

Academy Benchmarking The Department for Education has launched a new academies financial benchmarking website. It contains the 2012 to 2013 financial data from the accounts returns of single academy trusts and multi-academy trusts with only one school. The website enables academies to benchmark their income and expenditure against other academies with similar characteristics. This gives academies the opportunity to identify areas for efficiencies and savings. To view benchmarking data, you will need the LA number and the academy’s LA establishment number, which you can find on Edubase. See - http://www.education.gov.uk/afb/login.aspx Capital Funding Allocations The Department for Education has announced £6 billion capital funding, covering the second phase of the Priority School Building Programme, and school condition allocations and devolved formula capital (DFC) allocations for 2015 to 2018. See - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-allocations Phonics Grant The Department for Education is offering phonics partnership grants to primary schools that excel in phonics teaching to establish a network and share their success with other schools.  Details at https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?site=1000&lang=en&noticeid=1737001&fs=tru The deadline for expressions of interest is 6 March 2015.