Chancellor George Osborne has announced an extra £500m budget to “speed up” the introduction of a new national school funding formula.

Announcing his budget today, Mr Osborne said his aim was for 90 per cent of the schools that would benefit from the new formula to have been fully moved to the new system by 2020.

The formula, which will change the way the national schools budget is shared between different parts of the country, will be introduced from next year.

The new funding means the budgets of schools in low-funded areas will be able to rise from next year, without the full burden of this being placed on schools in high-funded areas, many of which are in inner London.  

TES reported last week that headteachers of London schools were worried that the reform would have a “drastic” effect.

Jonathan Simons, head of the education unit at the Policy Exchange think tank, told TES: “An extra £500m to make the national funding formula work is a very good idea. It’s essential to minimise the disruption that will be caused [by the move to a new system].”

Mr Osborne also announced that by 2020 every school would become an academy, or would be in the process of becoming an academy.

He said he would “focus on the performance of schools in the north, where results have not been as strong as we’d like.”

He has appointed Sir Nick Weller, executive principal of Dixons Academies Trust in Bradford, to provide the government with a plan to “turn around” northern schools in the same way that London’s school system has been transformed.

The chancellor also said the government would consider teaching maths to all pupils until the age of 18.

Read more on the new funding formula