Gaining Specialist School Status
To apply for specialist school status, a school must demonstrate reasonable standards of achievement, and produce a four-year development plan with quantified targets related to learning outcomes. The school must also raise £50,000 in private sector sponsorship. Private sector sponsorship includes charitable trusts, internal fund raising and donations from private companies. In some cases donations can be made in cash from entities in the private sector such as Arcadia and HSBC, but may also be donations "in kind" of goods or services. The total sponsorship to date is of the order of £100m.
A school may specialise in any of the following fields, or combine specialisms in two of them (at the same level of funding):
- Arts (can be Media, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, or combination of these)
- Business & Enterprise
- Engineering
- Humanities
- Languages
- Mathematics & Computing
- Music
- Science
- Sports
- Technology
Specialist schools must still meet the full requirements of the English national curriculum, so the specialism is seen as adding value to the existing statutory provision rather than being a radical departure from it. The important aspect in the eyes of the government is the focus that the specialism provides for providing leadership in the quest for whole school improvement.
The reward for achieving specialist status is a government grant of £100,000 to go with the £50,000 in sponsorship for a capital project related to the specialism and an extra £129 per pupil per year for four years to support the development plan. This is normally targeted on additional staffing and professional development, though up to 30% may be spent on equipment.
Schools that make a good attempt at achieving their targets over the 4 year development plan period normally have their grants renewed at 3-year intervals with no further need to raise sponsorship. However since 2008, the government has sought to encourage long-term relationships with business partners by offering a matching grant to redesignating specialist schools that are able to raise a further £25,000 in private sponsorship.
Read more about this topic: Specialist School
Famous quotes containing the words gaining, specialist, school and/or status:
“More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining not only in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts, she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“And this school wasn’t keeping anymore,
Unless for penitents who took their seat
Upon its doorsteps as at mercy’s feet
To make up for a lack of meditation.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman’s aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)