Name: Naomi Element
Age: 10
School: Landywood Primary School, Staffordshire
How much is she worth? Her school receives £1,640 a year to educate each individual pupil. There are a total of 500 pupils on the roll, so the school receives £820,000 from Staffordshire LEA.
With £1,640 a school could buy:
* A full-time newly qualified teacher for 5 weeks.
* A classroom assistant for 8.5 weeks.
* A complete redecoration of the school hall.
* 235 books for the library.
* A violin and weekly violin lessons for one child for an entire year.
* Enough netballs, soccer balls, rugby balls and markers for the entire school.
Naomi's headteacher says: "Once I've allocated resources to the things I have to deliver, I've nothing left for the arts, for music, for PE - all things which develop the whole child."
Name: Aimee McCartan
Age: 10
School: St Bernadette's RC Primary School in Birmingham
How much is she worth? Her school receives £1,970 a year to educate each individual pupil.
There are a total of 630 pupils on the roll, so the school receives £1.24m from Birmingham LEA.
With £1,970, a school could buy:
* A full-time newly qualified teacher for 6.5 weeks.
* A classroom assistant for just over 10 weeks.
* A complete redecoration of the school hall - and 15 chairs.
* 281 books for the library.
The system that delivers taxpayers' money to Britain's schools is about as clear as mud, and children are the direct losers, the new chief inspector of schools, Mike Tomlinson, will argue next month. In Ofsted's annual report he will criticise the current muddle of grants and allowances, bids and quotas, and underline the effect on schools of widespread budget variations.
Central government has forced schools to follow a national curriculum and local authorities are deluged with targets and directives. But government is silent about the amounts of money which should be spent in schools: there's no national entitlement, no minimum standard.
Instead there is a system where taxpayers' money is divvied up in Whitehall on the basis of a complex formula that few people pretend to understand. This Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) is supposed to take into account local needs and circumstances; in reality it's simply a reflection of what an area has received in the past.
Nearly half the money local authorities spend comes down this route, but there is no guarantee that the money Whitehall earmarks for schools will end up in the classroom. Some authorities spend more than the government recommends, many spend less and all use their own local funding formula to finally decide how much the education of an individual child is worth.
A recent Audit Commission report condemned the funding disparities and called on the government to use the extra money being pumped into education over the next three years to level the funding field. "These variations need to be challenged," said the report. "Unfortunately the lack of transparency in the system means that such a challenge isn't always possible."
The "variations" amount to a postcode lottery, where school budgets can differ for no apparent reason. For primary school children, the highest funding authority is Kensington and Chelsea in London, with a spend of £2,873 per pupil. Nottinghamshire spends just £1,582 - nearly £1,300 less, a shortfall equivalent to half a million pounds a year for an average-sized primary school.
For secondary children, Kensington and Chelsea heads the national funding figures again, with a figure per pupil of £3,626. Northumberland spends £1,862, leaving a 1,000-pupil school in that area nearly £2m out of pocket.
These are huge differences. Schools with the extra funding will be able to afford smaller classes, more special needs support, more books, more materials - more of everything.
"Very few parents are aware of these issues," says John McNally, head of St Bernadette's RC primary school, in Birmingham. "The vast majority of parents assume that the money is the same wherever you live."
Comparisons between rural and urban authorities are often branded unfair, with accusations that critics have failed to take into account the special circumstances in each local area. London local authorities are particularly resentful of contrasting figures, which ignore the considerably higher costs in the capital.
But even neighbouring schools with broadly similar circumstances can have wildly different budget allocations. Alan Stockley is head of the Landywood Primary School in Staffordshire. Landywood is an urban area just 10 miles north of Birmingham's city centre. His annual budget for 500 pupils is £820,000. "If my school was inside Birmingham I would be getting an extra £223,500 a year," he says. A few miles to the south, John McNally's school gets £1,241,532. Staffordshire gives its schools an average of £1,640 per primary pupil. In Birmingham the average figure is £2,087.
"Everything stems from these numbers," says Stockley. "If I was in Birmingham I could buy more books, spend more on the buildings. I could employ more teachers, more support staff. I'm having to do much of the administration myself and my staff get no administration time at all."
"We originally came from Birmingham," says Peter Element, whose 10-year-old daughter Naomi is in year 6 at Landywood. "It was my choice to move to Staffordshire, but I didn't realise that the funding was so low here."
Meanwhile, in Small Heath, John McNally can afford things that his Staffordshire colleagues can only dream about. "I have money for support staff for special needs and a host of other things," he says.
McNally is keen to emphasise the fact that his situation isn't perfect. His classes are too large. "I would like to see more funding here," he says. "But we all have the same curriculum to deliver. We should be aiming to level the funding upwards."
Even within authorities there can be bizarre anomalies created by the complex formulae used to distribute funding. In most areas primary schools are funded much less generously than their secondary neighbours.
John Cash is head of Westgate primary in Suffolk's Bury St Edmunds. With 289 pupils on roll he receives £504,181 to run his school, £1,744 per pupil. But a middle school in the same area, catering for 273 pupils, receives £661,256, whilst a local high school receives £1,051,419 for just 294 pupils, an individual pupil allocation of £3,576, double that received by the primary school.
"Teachers in primary schools," says Cash, "need time away from the children for meetings and preparation. How can we do that with this level of finance?" Cash accepts that the more complex curriculum in middle and high schools should be reflected with more money. "But over £150,000 more?" he asks.
Headteachers' organisations have been bending the ear of anyone who would listen on the subject for some time, but they argue that the solution has to be a levelling up. "I don't want other schools' money," says Stockley, "I want equal money."
The government points to a green paper produced by John Prescott's Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, which suggests a reform of the system. The results of the consultation process are currently being studied by ministers.
"But why for the first two years of government did they do absolutely nothing?" asks Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat education spokesman. "Prior to '97 there were clear statements that they were going to reform this process. There was a real commitment; every school in the country expected some kind of new formulae."
The green paper says that changes could begin in the 2004/2005 budget year, but it would take a further three years for changes to work through the funding system.
"That's a timescale of 10 years, from the '97 election to the implementation of the changes they promised," says Willis. "An entire school population has been allowed to move through a system which is patently unfair."
David Kidney chairs F40, the all-party group of MPs calling for a fairer funding system for the poorest authorities. Kidney argues that, with proposals on the table, the government could move quickly to correct the situation: "It wouldn't be impossible to see a white paper before the election. If, as the green paper says, there will be no losers in any funding change, there's no reason why the government shouldn't be moving on this issue."
But heads' organisations aren't happy with the green paper. They would prefer to see direct funding of schools through the DfEE, together with a national formula which would guarantee a minimum level of funding for every child. "There's a national curriculum, national tests, a national inspection system, national pay rates," argues John Dunford from the Secondary Heads Association. "A national funding system is essential."
"Where are the equal opportunities for these children?" asks Alan Stockley. "All schools are under pressure to meet government targets on literacy and numeracy. But once I've allocated resources to the things I have to deliver, I've absolutely nothing left for the arts, for music, PE - all the things which help develop the whole child."
Parents are left scratching their heads. Under the current system it's almost impossible for a parent to get a meaningful statement about education funding in their area. If parents want to find out how much their LEA gives a school for educating their child, all they can do is ask a string of questions. How does the local funding formula work? How much is given to their child's school? How much of the education budget is held back to be spent centrally and what does the local authority spend its central funding on? Then they have to try to make some sense of the answers.
"The system needs changing," says Peter Element. There needs to be transparency and equality. "All children need the same support. They all study the same things, don't they?"
