I’m a school manager at Kettlewell Primary School, which is tucked away just outside the village of Kettlewell, a very small rural community in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. It’s full of fields and sheep and is very picturesque. We also teach children from outside the village from small hamlets up the Dale, which are very rural.
Property prices here are going up, which then restricts younger families moving into the area. This has an impact on the school, because if young families are unable to move here, then we don’t have the new children coming through in the young years.
There’s a new national funding formula that’s come into play over the past couple of years, which has a massive impact on small rural schools. When they’re talking about a small school, they’re probably talking about a school of two or three hundred children. They don’t get the concept of 30 pupils, which is the number we have. We’re so vulnerable in that if a family moves out from the area and their children leave our school, it has an enormous impact on our budget, which is tight enough as it is.
It always seems to come down to money nowadays. And actually, what should be more important is what children need. They have one stab at primary school and it shouldn’t be driven by money, but rather by giving those children the very best start in their education that they can possibly have. Sometimes we have to juggle things about in order to try and do that for them. And that’s not always easy.
A small school like ours should be given a set amount of money every year, because that’s what it needs to function and give those children what they should be entitled to in their primary education. It’s such an important time of their lives. Primary school sets them up for their secondary school education and it should be the very best experience it can be.
Building these foundations when they come into Reception class and beyond is so important. But sometimes all the worries we’ve got regarding money can take us away from what’s important, which is giving those kids the best that they can have.