SHA calls for fairer school funding which bypasses councils. Clare Dean reports.
MELBOURN village college is a comprehensive community college with 520 pupils aged 11-16. Its postal address is Royston, Hertfordshire, but it falls three miles within the Cambridgeshire boundary.
If the boundary with neighbouring Hertfordshire were redrawn so that the college received Hertfordshirefunding, it would have an extra pound;359,000 in its budget.
Hertfordshire teachers receive an outer London weighting and the county council devolves a higher proportion of funding to schools so the real difference is around pound;300,000.
But the Secondary Heads Association says: “A difference of more than pound;570 per pupil because of the vagaries of boundary lines defies logic.”