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.
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