Pre-16 schools funding: local authority guidance for 2025 to 2026
Local authority guidance for implementing the funding system for the 2025 to 2026 financial year
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Summary policy document
At the October budget we announced an additional £2.3 billion for mainstream schools and young people with high needs in 2025 to 2026. This means that core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next financial year.
£1 billion of this increase is being allocated as high needs funding in 2025 to 2026, recognising the continued increase in costs. This brings total high needs funding to £11.9 billion.
The further £1.3 billion will cover the remaining costs of the 2024 teachers’ pay award in mainstream schools, so that the full 12 months of salary costs are fully funded at a national level; an increase to the mainstream schools national funding formula (NFF), and increases to the pupil premium and other elements of core funding.
We have published a NFF policy note to support the sector with their planning ahead of the final NFF allocations. This document includes indicative schools NFF factor values, alongside information on the mainstream schools, high needs, and central school services funding for 2025 to 2026. It also includes details on the grants being rolled into the schools NFF from 2025 to 2026, and an annex which includes information to support disapplication requests.
We aim to publish NFF allocations for schools and all supporting documents on the schools and high needs NFF (including the schools operational guide and NFF technical note), for 2025 to 2026 by the end of November. Dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations will then be published in December 2024.
Updates to this page
Last updated 6 November 2024 + show all updates
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We have updated the 'Summary policy note for schools and high needs national funding formula 2025 to 2026' to amend a typing error in one of the figures in table 1.
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We have updated the 'Summary policy note for schools and high needs national funding formula 2025 to 2026' to include indicative schools national funding formula (NFF) factor values, alongside information on the mainstream schools, high needs, and central school services funding for 2025 to 2026. It also includes details on the grants being rolled into the schools NFF from 2025 to 2026, and an annex which includes information to support disapplication requests.
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We have updated the 'Details' section of the Pre-16 schools funding: local authority guidance for 2025 to 2026 landing page, following the October 2024 budget announcement.
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First published.