North West schools receive £654 less per pupil on average than those in London, according to a new report which calls for 'urgent action'. Funding for Northern schools has lagged behind the rest of the UK over the past decade while regional inequalities have risen since the pandemic, the report says.
According to the report, Northern schools support disproportionate numbers of children in poverty, children with poor levels of development on entering school, vulnerable children, children who have suffered from neglect and abuse, and children in local authority care. Children in the North of England are also more likely to be born into unhealthy environments, the report states.
According to the report, children who fail to reach a good level of development by the age of five are nine times more likely to perform below expected levels in reading and three times more likely to be out of education, employment and training by 16. They're also three times more likely to miss 1 in 10 school days.
Severe absence was worst in this ward with 9.4 pc of pupils absent most of the school year. In Brooklands, 37.9 pc of pupils missed 16 days of school or more. Bradford is also highlighted in the report as a place where partnership working between public sector organisations has been successful. The West Yorkshire city has created a first-of-its-kind database that contains health records of citizens across the area linked with education records, social care and policing data.
The Department for Education committed an additional £3.3bn to schools to cover the additional costs incurred by the pandemic. However, the National Audit Office revealed concerns that this funding was 'insufficient' to cover the additional costs arising from the pandemic, according to the report.