Correspondence

DfE Update academies: 2 April 2025

Published 2 April 2025

Applies to England

Information: The national non-domestic rates claim form for 2025 to 2026 is now open

The academy national non-domestic rates (NNDR) claim form for 2025 to 2026 is now open for claims.

Only academies whose billing authority is not implementing the central NNDR payment process as of 1 April 2025 will need to submit their own NNDR claim. You can check whether you need to submit your own claim by referring to the ‘schools and academies’ tab of the schools and academies - confirmation of your national non-domestic rates payment process for 2025 to 2026 spreadsheet. Column K ‘NNDR claim status for 2025 to 2026’ on this tab confirms the payment process your billing authority will be implementing as of 1 April 2025.

New submissions will be paid within 3 months of receiving a valid claim.    

The final submission deadline for claims is 5pm on Monday 2 February 2026. Claims submitted after this date will be paid in the 2026 to 2027 financial year.

We recommend you read the accompanying NNDR academy guidance before completing your form. The guidance details how to claim for NNDR and provides help to access and complete your claim form.

If you have any questions about the NNDR process or how to complete the online form, you can contact us via the customer help portal.

Information: Pupil premium allocations for 2025 to 2026 financial year

We have published the initial pupil premium allocations for 2025 to 2026 financial year. We will confirm these in June and will make first payments to academies on 8 July 2025.

As previously communicated, we have introduced a new approach to the way we provide pupil premium allocations to academy trusts.

On 27 March we uploaded a statement in Document exchange for each academy trust showing the initial 2025 to 2026 unsuppressed pupil premium allocations for the academies in each trust. We are aware that these are showing under the document type ‘Pupil premium allocations Q4’. This will be corrected shortly so that they show under ‘Pupil premium allocations Q1’ and you will receive a new notification when that happens.

Statements can be viewed and downloaded from the ‘documents received’ section when signing in to Document exchange with your academy trust UKPRN account details in DfE sign-in. It is important that single academy trusts use the trust UKPRN to access DfE sign in. If you use your academy UKPRN, you will not be able to view your pupil premium statement.

If you have any questions, contact us via our customer help portal.

Information: 2025 to 2026 student financial support scheme guides published

We have published the student financial support scheme guides for academic year 2025 to 2026, for:

• 16 to 19 Bursary Fund
• Residential Bursary Fund
• Residential Support Scheme
• Care to Learn

These guides set out the funding rules for each of the different schemes.

The 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide includes information about the change in process for funding claims for students eligible for, and needing support from, the bursary for defined vulnerable groups. You must ensure you understand the change and what you need to do.

For institutions with students who are young parents and who need support from Care to Learn, the guide contains important changes about the new funding claim process. You must ensure you understand your responsibilities and how the process will operate.  

More generally, we ask that you review the updated guides and remind yourselves of the funding rules which apply to ensure your processes accurately reflect them.

Information: Maths and English continuous professional development grant competition 

On Wednesday 12 March 2025, the Department for Education (DfE) launched a grant competition to deliver continuous professional development for maths and English teachers and leaders. This is for those teaching 16 to 19-year-old students who are covered by the maths and English condition of funding. Further information can be found on Find a grant. 

Information: Maths and English condition of funding academic year 2025 to 2026

It is essential for 16 to 19-year-olds to progress towards level 2 English and maths, where they do not have these qualifications. That is why the maths and English condition of funding requires a minimum number of hours of stand-alone, whole class, in person teaching. Institutions should now have all the information they need to prepare for the 2025 to 2026 academic year. 

In the maths and English condition of funding, we have published technical updates: 

• explaining how to record the planned minimum teaching hours in the Individualised Learner Record (ILR)/school census 

• to support ensuring you have the evidence needed for audit of the planned minimum teaching hours 

The ILR technical specification has also been updated to include maths and English minimum hours Funding and Monitoring codes. The school census technical specification will be updated.

If you have any questions, contact your local place-based lead, or contact DfE via the online contact us form. 

Information: Post-16 budget grant and Teachers’ pension scheme employer contribution grants (TPSECG)

We have received some enquiries recently about these post-16 grants. This is where you can find the relevant information.

Post-16 budget grant

Academic year 2024 to 2025 - this is the former post-16 schools budget grant and this grant stops at the end of academic year 2024 to 2025.

From April 2025, the grant includes further education (FE) colleges and sixth-form colleges and is called the post-16 budget grant. We will communicate the methodology, conditions of grant and institution-level funding allocations in May 2025.

Academic year 2025 to 2026 - we have brought the grant into the national funding rate which will be the same for all institutions with a 16 to 19 allocation.

16 to 19 TPSECG – financial year 2025 to 2026

We’re paying the grant for maintained mainstream schools and mainstream academies with 16 to 19 provision in 2 instalments. 

FE TPSECG – academic year 2025 to 2026

FE providers will receive this as part of your 16 to 19 funding allocation. 

Information: 2025 to 2026 high needs operational guide has been updated

We have updated the high needs funding 2025 to 2026 operational guide in the following areas:

• information about the distribution methodology for the additional funding to compensate employers for the increase in National Insurance contributions
• updated information following the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023, which took effect from 24 February 2025
• references to updated arranging alternative provision commissioning guidance for local authorities and schools

You can read full details of these changes in section 2.2 ‘March 2025 updates’ of the guide.

Information: Capital funding to improve the condition of schools 2025 to 2026

On 27 March 2025, DfE published details of £2.1 billion in capital funding for the financial year 2025 to 2026 to improve the condition of the school estate.

This includes school condition allocations (SCA) for local authorities, large multi-academy trusts and large voluntary-aided school bodies. We have also published devolved formula capital (DFC) amounts for individual schools to spend on local capital priorities.

Allocation amounts, the condition funding methodology and spend guidance are available on school capital funding.

The allocations are provisional. Final SCA and DFC allocations will be published later in the spring, based on information about schools and their responsible bodies at the start of April 2025, to take account of school movements between responsible bodies, closures and mergers.

This comes alongside publishing local authority basic need capital allocations of over £1 billion and high needs capital allocations of £740 million.

We also expect to publish details of successful applications to the Condition Improvement Fund later in the spring.

Webinar: Risk protection arrangement (RPA) members only – stress workshop

Thursday 3 April 2025, 10:00am to midday. Register online.

Webinar: RPA members only – stress workshop

Wednesday 30 April 2025, 10:00am to midday. Register online.