Guidance

Teachers’ pay additional grant 2024 to 2025: methodology

Updated 23 October 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

In July 2023 we announced £525 million in 2023 to 2024 to support schools with the September 2023 teachers’ pay award, with a further £900 million in 2024 to 2025. This funding is being split between mainstream schools, special schools and alternative provision (AP), early years, and 16 to 19 provision. The split reflects relative pupil numbers, and core funding amounts, across these different types of provision.

This guide explains how we will allocate the funding for mainstream schools (for the 5 to 16-year-old age range), and for special and AP schools in 2024 to 2025. As in 2023 to 2024 financial year, this funding will be allocated through the teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG).

In 2024 to 2025, TPAG will cover the whole of the financial year. Therefore, allocations for 2024 to 2025 will be calculated using twelve-sevenths of the funding rates in 2023 to 2024.

We will pay mainstream academies an additional allocation to cover April to August 2025 because their funding cycle follows the academic year – this will represent five-twelfths of academies’ 2024 to 2025 allocations.

The TPAG will not continue as a separate grant in 2024 to 2025 for early years since that funding has been rolled into the core early years funding instead.

2. Eligibility for the grant

2.1 Mainstream schools

TPAG will fund the following mainstream school providers, for the 5 to 16-year-old age range:

• primary and secondary maintained schools
• primary and secondary academies and free schools
• all-through maintained schools
• all-through academies
• city technology colleges

2.2 Special schools and AP schools

TPAG will fund the following special schools and AP schools:

• maintained special schools
• special academies and free schools
• pupil referral units (PRUs) maintained by a local authority (pre-16 provision only)
• AP academies and free schools (pre-16 provision only)
• maintained hospital schools and the equivalent academies
• non-maintained special schools (NMSS)

3. Paying the grant

3.1 Mainstream schools

Local authority maintained mainstream schools and mainstream academies will receive allocations under the TPAG, covering the 2024 to 2025 financial year (April 2024 to March 2025).

We will publish school level allocations of the mainstream schools’ portion of TPAG for the 2024 to 2025 financial year in May 2024.

We will pay funding directly to mainstream academies.

Local authorities and academies will receive their payments for 2024 to 2025 in 2 tranches. Payments will be made in May 2024 for local authorities, and June 2024 for academies, to cover April 2024 to August 2024; and in October 2024 for local authorities, and November 2024 for academies, to cover September 2024 to March 2025.

New and growing schools will receive their TPAG payment later in the financial year as explained in the new and growing schools section.

The funding will be incorporated into core budget allocations for 2025 to 2026. For primary, secondary and all-through schools, this will mean the funding being rolled into the schools national funding formula for 2025 to 2026.

In recognition of the funding cycle for academies, which follows the academic year (rather than the financial year used for local authority maintained schools), academies will receive an additional allocation of the TPAG to cover April to August 2025. This is the period in advance of the funding being rolled into academies’ core budget allocations through the national funding formula. This will be allocated using the same rates and pupil numbers as the 2024 to 2025 grant and will, therefore, represent five-twelfths of their 2024 to 2025 allocations.

3.2 Special schools and AP schools

Local authorities will receive 2 payments for their special schools and AP schools in 2024 to 2025.

We confirmed local authorities’ first allocations of TPAG funding for special schools and AP schools in May 2024. This allocation is based on place numbers as reported to ESFA by April 2024, as set out in the allocations section below. The allocation also specified an amount of funding specifically for maintained hospital schools (and the equivalent academies). This first payment will be made to local authorities in June 2024.

Local authorities will receive a second allocation of TPAG funding for special schools and AP schools in March 2025, using updated place number data as set out in the allocations section.

We will allocate funding for local authorities to pass onto individual schools as listed in the eligibility for the grant section, except for NMSS who will be funded directly by ESFA.

Local authorities will have flexibility in how they pass on the funding allocations for special schools and AP schools to individual providers. This flexibility also applies in how they pass on the funding allocations for hospital schools (and the equivalent academies). These flexibilities recognises that the teachers’ pay costs faced by special schools and AP schools vary considerably between individual providers, depending in part on the complexity of the pupil needs that they serve. Local authorities must however comply with the following requirements in setting their local methodologies for how they will pass on the additional funding to schools they currently maintain, academies they previously maintained and free schools located in their area.

Local authorities must, except for NMSS:

• pass on 100% of TPAG funding to individual schools as listed in the eligibility for the grant section
• ensure that all eligible schools receive a funding allocation through TPAG in 2024 to 2025
• have transparent criteria to distribute funding to individual schools, treating academies and mainstream schools the same
• consult with eligible schools before deciding their methodology for allocating TPAG funding

Local authorities should seek to swiftly confirm the allocations for individual special schools and AP schools to provide institutions with the earliest possible certainty over their budgets.

We will confirm in due course how the high needs element of the TPAG funding will continue to be provided in 2025 to 2026.

4. Funding rates

4.1 Mainstream schools

In the 2024 to 2025 TPAG, the same factors will be used as in the 2023 to 2024 grant:

• a basic per-pupil rate with different rates for primary, key stage 3, and key stage 4
• a lump sum paid to all schools, regardless of pupil numbers
• a per-pupil rate for pupils who are recorded as having been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years (FSM6), with different rates for primary and secondary pupils

We apply an area cost adjustment (ACA) to the funding rates in table 1 because of geographical variation in labour costs. We have used the same ACAs as the schools national funding formula for 2024 to 2025 and we have published them in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula: technical note.

We will multiply the base funding rates in table 1 by the relevant ACA to calculate the school level allocations.

The TPAG factors are based on those used for the mainstream schools’ additional grant (MSAG) in 2023 to 2024. This ensures that TPAG funding is allocated in a way that benefits all schools, whilst having some weighting towards schools with higher proportions of pupils with additional needs. The lump sum element of the TPAG ensures that small schools receive a higher amount of funding, per pupil, than larger schools.

Table 1

The base funding rates for 2024 to 2025 financial year are:

• a basic per-pupil rate of £62 for primary pupils, including pupils in reception
• a basic per-pupil rate of £86 for key stage 3 pupils
• a basic per-pupil rate of £98 for key stage 4 pupils
• a lump sum of £2,306
• a FSM6 per-pupil rate of £53 per eligible primary pupil
• a FSM6 per-pupil rate of £77 per eligible secondary pupil

4.2 Special schools and AP schools

The funding rate for 2024 to 2025 financial year is £446 per place.

We apply an ACA to the funding rate because of geographical variation in labour costs. We have used the same ACAs as for the high needs national funding formula for 2024 to 2025 and we have published them in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula: technical note.

To account for additional costs faced by hospital schools (and their equivalent academies), local authorities will receive an uplift equivalent to 1.75% of the funding for hospital education as set out in 2024 to 2025 NFF allocations, as updated in the more recent 2024 to 2025 dedicated schools grant allocations.

5. Allocations

5.1 Mainstream schools

We aim to publish school level allocations showing the total funding allocated for the 2024 to 2025 financial year and the conditions of grant in May 2024.

We have calculated allocations by multiplying the relevant funding rates by the pupil count, and FSM6 pupil count, using data from the October 2023 census. The allocations also include the lump sum amount. We have applied ACAs to the funding rates.

We will pro-rata allocations for schools which are closing in the 2024 to 2025 financial year for the proportion of the year that they are open.

5.2 Special schools and AP schools

We published the first local authority level allocations and the TPAG conditions of grant relating to special schools and AP schools in May 2024.

We calculated local authority level allocations by multiplying the per place funding rate (with ACA applied) by the confirmed place numbers for all the eligible schools at the time of this announcement, except for NMSS.

For the first allocation to local authorities, we used 2024 to 2025 academic year place numbers for special and AP academies (as published in March 2024), and 2023 to 2024 academic year place numbers for maintained special schools and pupil referral units (as reported in 2023 to 2024 section 251 budget returns published in December 2023.

ESFA will allocate funding directly to NMSS. ESFA calculates this funding by multiplying the per place funding rate (with the relevant ACA applied) by the number of places funded for the 2024 to 2025 academic year as confirmed to ESFA by March 2024.

We will publish the second local authority level allocations for special schools and AP in March 2025. For this second allocation we will use 2024 to 2025 academic year place numbers for maintained special and AP schools from local authorities’ section 251 returns (due to be published later this year, and therefore not available at the time of the first allocation), as well as updated data on 2024 to 2025 place numbers as at March 2025, that will be used in the DSG for academies and new special and AP free schools (as covered in the new and growing schools section).

ESFA will allocate any additional funding for new places in non-maintained special schools directly. ESFA calculates this funding by multiplying the per place funding rate (with the relevant ACA applied) by the number of additional places opened between the time of this announcement and March 2025.

6. New and growing schools

6.1 Mainstream schools that have opened in the past 7 years and are still adding year groups in the 2024 to 2025 academic year

Schools that have opened in the past 7 years and are still adding year groups in the 2024 to 2025 academic year, and schools that opened between September 2023 and August 2024 (and are not recorded on the October 2023 census) will be funded based on the estimated pupil numbers as recorded in their respective local authority’s 2024 to 2025 authority proforma tool (APT). This data is used for their first payment of the TPAG in spring 2024.

These schools’ funding allocations will be subject to adjustment to reflect actual pupil numbers in 2024 to 2025. For these ‘new and growing’ schools the second payment of the TPAG will determine whether a retrospective adjustment is required to bring the initial funding allocations into line with the actual pupil numbers that the schools record in the October school census. These schools will receive this second payment of TPAG by March 2025, to allow sufficient time to process the autumn 2024 census data. If the ‘new and growing’ school is an academy, the third and final payment of the TPAG (to cover the period April 2025 to August 2025) will also include this adjustment, again based on autumn 2024 (October) pupil numbers.

6.2 Mainstream schools opening in September 2024

For mainstream schools that open in September 2024, we will confirm TPAG allocations in February 2025. We will calculate their allocations using pupil number data from the October 2024 census.

We have not published indicative funding allocations for these schools because school leaders can estimate their funding levels using the published per pupil funding rates.

6.3 New special and AP free schools that open between June 2024 and March 2025.

Funding for any new special and AP free schools opening between July 2024 and February 2025 will be included in the second TPAG allocation to be made in March 2025. Local authorities will be aware of those special and AP free schools opening in their area and will wish to take them into account in consultations and decisions about the distribution of TPAG funding.

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