YP Comment: Injustice of school funding - formula needs a rethink

THE RESPONSE of the Government to the tirade of criticism brought on by its changes to school funding is always the same: the present system is unfair and many schools will gain as the result of a far more equitable distribution of funds.
School funding is in the spotlight.School funding is in the spotlight.
School funding is in the spotlight.

The picture that is emerging, however, is a very different one. Yes, under current arrangements, rural areas have been losing out to towns and cities, but because many struggling schools are in urban areas, the planned reallocation will take money from those already near the bottom of the league tables and redirect it to schools that are doing very well.

In Yorkshire, for example, this would have a major impact on Bradford where under-performing schools have kept the city in the lower echelons of the league tables for many years.

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MPs such as Philip Davies in Shipley and Clive Betts in Sheffield have been drawing attention to the injustice of these plans, yet they are only two of the voices in a growing cross-party protest as the full effect of the reorganisation becomes apparent, particularly when set against the background of a reduced national budget and rising wages, pensions and other costs.

With schools in this region alone facing the reality of having £300m cut from their budgets – an average of £442 per pupil – purely as a result of the new formula, surely Education Secretary Justine Greening will see the folly of these changes and urge the Government to change course.

As Mr Betts says, children only get one chance at education and yet those unlucky enough to find themselves in a struggling school are having their chances further blighted by a crude and inflexible formula. Time, surely, for one of Theresa May’s U-turns.

Degree of doubt

NO ONE would argue 
that nursing is not a vital 
job and one that demands 
a high level of training. 
But, in adding his voice to those who believe that nursing degrees are unnecessary, UK Independence Party MEP Mike Hookem is not denigrating nurses at all.

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On the contrary, it is precisely because nurses are crucial to a properly functioning NHS that answers have to be found to the present shortage.

With 24,000 unfilled vacancies, a 20 per cent drop in applications for graduate courses and EU nurses leaving Britain because of uncertainties over Brexit, it is perfectly valid to question whether nurses should be spending four years studying when they could be involved in full-time work.

At the very least, the content and ethos of these courses should be put up for public debate.

Is the amount of time spent on nursing theories, for example, truly worthwhile? How relevant are these to nursing practice and to the daily interaction with patients that is such an important part of the job?

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After all, the type of patient neglect revealed in the Stafford Hospital scandal was a horrifying reminder that all the nursing qualifications in the world are no substitute for basic common sense and a simple understanding of patient needs.

The Royal College of Nursing, which has persistently pushed for nursing to be regarded as a more academic subject, will not be happy for such matters to be debated. And clearly, the abolition of nursing degrees is not, in itself, an answer to the nursing shortage.

But a potential crisis of this magnitude demands that a range of options be considered. And, when it comes to improving patient care, no subject should be off limits.

The Vikings return to York

AMID ALL the misery caused by the floods of Christmas 2015, the fate of the Jorvik Viking Centre in York did not excite much comment at the time.

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Yet the loss of one of the city’s top tourist attractions was felt not merely by York itself but also by countless visitors, from both near and far, who come to York to savour its priceless historical heritage of which its Viking past is such an important part.

Since it opened in 1984, Jorvik has always sought new and vivid ways of bringing the past to life so it is no surprise that the Centre’s long-awaited re-opening on Saturday will showcase an entirely new re-imagining of York’s Viking legacy.

The floods’ devastation, it seems, has been merely a spur to the fertile imaginations of Jorvik’s designers and the flames which lit up the city skies over the weekend were a welcome sign that, at last, the Vikings are back.