As the situation surrounding coronavirus continues to develop, new information and advice is circulating rapidly. To help keep you and your academy moving, we have looked at the latest updates and clarifications to the Government guidance.
Please be assured that as a firm, we will continue to support your academy through this difficult time. For us it is 'business as usual' (just working remotely from home) and we anticipate that we will be in touch in due course to arrange our external audit work on the TPAs, yearend accounts and AARs. We will continue to provide ad hoc support and all other services that we perform for your academy.
The key message for academies is that the Department for Education has already confirmed that schools will continue to receive their core funding allocations (as determined by the local authority for maintained schools and through the general annual grant (GAG) for academies) for the 2020 to 2021 financial year to ensure that they are able to continue to pay their staff and meet their other regular financial commitments.
Coronavirus: Guidance for schools and other educational settings
This guidance was initially issued on 20 March 2020 but is being regularly updated. It provides guidance and advice about coronavirus in educational settings for staff, parents and carers, pupils and students and covers areas including:
- Educational provision for vulnerable children and children of key workers
- The closure of educational settings
- Free school meals arrangements
- The cancellation of GCSEs, AS and A levels
- Travel guidance for educational settings
- Social distancing in education and childcare settings
- Financial support for schools
- Online education resources
- School and college performance measures
- School admission appeals
Find out more here.
School funding: Exceptional costs associated with coronavirus for the period March to July 2020
On Tuesday 7 April, the Department for Education issued further guidance which sets out the financial support that will be put in place to ensure schools can focus on the vital role they are playing at this time and as it is not known how long the current situation will continue, the guidance covers support for schools up to the end of the 2019 to 2020 summer term.
Where schools have remained open and face additional costs as a result of the coronavirus outbreak which they are unable to cover these from their existing resources, additional funding is available. In summary:
- Funding will be available for all state-funded mainstream and special schools, and alternative provision.
- The additional costs covered by the funding are detailed in the guidance and include increased premises related costs, support for free school meals (FSM) for eligible children who are not attending school, where those costs are not covered by the FSM national voucher scheme and additional cleaning required due to confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases.
- Funding allowances are determined by the number of pupils.
- There is also short-term support with costs.
Find out more here.
For further news and announcements please visit our dedicated webpage here.