The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
City schools in deficit revealed after PT FOI request
ed standard in reading, writing and maths. The figure was 33 per cent for Paston Ridings.
The council said: “The local authority has a duty under legislation to issue these letters where schools have not been achieving outcomes which are as good as they might be over successive years.
“It is important to note that one of these schools has now improved to such an extent that it has recently been judged by Ofsted to be providing a ‘Good’ quality of education for its pupils.
“The other has seen an improvement to outcomes for younger pupils over successive years and is now confident that this will translate into improved performance at the end of KS2.
“Please note that all of the letters relate to standards achieved at the end of Year 6 in May 2017. None of these relate to finance or budgets.
“Every school has written a comprehensive and detailed action plan, endorsed and supported by governors. Every one of these action plans have been approved by the Education Department of Peterborough City Council as being of good quality, with the right actions identified to bring about the progress needed.
“Every school is making good progress in implementing the action plan and seeing positive impact of the actions taken.
“Peterborough City Council is committed to working with the schools across the city to improve their performance and will continue to do so.
“The schools named have not simply acknowledged that actions are needed but are fully committed to making those improvements.” The three city council maintained Peterborough schools which were in deficit in 2016/17 have been revealed.
The schools had previously not wished for their identity to be disclosed, but a Peterborough Telegraph Freedom of Information request has shown they were: Barnack C of E Primary (£28,185 deficit), Nenegate in Park Lane - a small special school - (£14,815) and Ken Stimpson Community School in Staniland Way, Werrington (£127,316). Barnack was also in deficit in 2015/16 (£13,010) as were St John’s Church School, Riseholme, Orton Goldhay (£46,007) and Middleton Primary, Bretton (£3,028). The council said Barnack’s funding has not kept pace with costs and that pupil projections have been higher than the actual numbers. On Nenegate, it said funding has not kept pace with costs and there have been fluctuating pupil numbers.
On Ken Stimpson, the council said it had received large reductions in Sixth Form funding and that funding had not kept pace with costs. It added that the school had had a temporary dip in pupil numbers five years ago and that due to the school being part of a Private Finance Initiative scheme it has “a reduced ability to making savings in certain areas.” Fewer parents in Peterborough have been fined for their children missing school, figures from the Department for Education have shown.
In the 2016/17 academic year 967 penalty notices were handed out to parents, 54 per cent fewer than in the previous year.
However, the number of persistently absent children in Peterborough stood at 3,585, an eight per cent increase on 2015/16.