Submitting funding bids for structural work “increasingly feels like buying a lottery ticket”, a high school has said in its annual report.
Sandbach High School, which needs extensive work on its aging buildings, said that the Condition Improvement Fund awards were often arbitrary, noting: “When you review the list of successful bids each year, there tend to be themes – windows might be popular one year, another year it’s boilers, another year fire safety.
“The problem is you don’t know which type of capital expenditure will be successful when you are pulling together your bid, so you take a risk and can only then hope that you are successful.”
The trust said in its financial report for the year to 31st August that it had managed to secure Condition Improvement Fund grants from the Government to begin several “essential” estate repairs and improvements including replacing flat roofing, replacing metal-framed single glazed windows and carrying out “essential” fire safety work.
Said the report: “Having been successful in a number of annual bids the process has become a double-edged sword.
“The trust has begun to see huge improvements in its estate, allowing us to refurbish classrooms and communal areas without fear that leaking roofs and dodgy windows would damage those improvements, but it has also highlighted the frustrations in the way that capital grants appear to be allocated.
“The problem is you don’t know which type of capital expenditure will be successful when you are putting together your bid, so you take a risk and can only hope that you are successful.
“With something like the roofing or the windows, while gaps between successful bids are frustrating, they can be managed, as the first phases of the projects involved work on the most dilapidated areas of the estate.
“Not being able to complete the fire safety work has, however, caused significant anxiety among trustees and the school management, not least because we experienced an accidental fire on site in May half term and that highlighted just how important the new alarm and new fire doors were in reducing the damage and minimising the disruption to the school in the middle of exam season.
“It seems inconceivable that we qualified for funding of phase one of fire safety improvement work in 2023 (yet) our need to complete phase two 12 months later is no longer enough of a priority.
“How can having half the building protected by a new alarm system and new fire doors while the rest is reliant on an old alarm system and old fire doors be in any way acceptable?”
Bids
The report said that each phase for work involved drawing up a new bid in the autumn term, with the good news of grants being awarded coming in the late spring or early summer. Plans then went out to tender; often costs had increased, so work had to be scaled back. Work begins in the autumn and while it is going on, the school begins the cycle again to submit the next round of bids.
Each cycle of bids involves the school spending money on consultants and surveys that it may not recover if the bid is unsuccessful.
The trust was successful in its bid for the first phase of fire safety improvements in 2023 and this allowed a new fire alarm to be installed, new safety glass to the internal windows of the main hall and new fire doors. This first phase covered part of the main school building so the school applied for funding for the next phase, which would have allowed enough coverage for the old fire alarm system to be decommissioned and removed. This bid was not successful and was an appeal, which left alarm systems and fire doors in part of the school meeting current fire regulations but fire doors in the rest of the school meeting previous regulations.
Investing
Said the report: “For the last three years the trust has been investing heavily in its staff, students, governance and its estate. It is only as we sit back and reflect on where we are now that we see just how much has changed and developed and how much we still want to achieve for the trust.
“It won’t be easy to keep up the current momentum, as anyone who has ever managed a publicly-funded budget will know, as there are few opportunities to create reserves.”
The report said the sixth form college had undergone “a quiet but nonetheless impressive transformation” in the 12 months covered by the report, and “punched above its weight” for providing opportunities for leadership and growth.
With the introduction last year of “Enrichment Wednesdays” there were now enrichment pathways that students could follow, many of them student-led, which included sports (not least a Stoke City programme and Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme athletes), as well as mental health mentoring, Stem, various arts pathways and clubs and societies, said the report.
The school’s latest year 13 pupils went on to apprenticeships (3%), employment (24%) and university (70%), including Oxbridge (2%), Russell Group (leading UK universities) (26%) and other universities (42%) with a handful of students choosing for various reasons to return to college for an additional year.
In the classroom, over the last four comparable exam seasons the average points score for A-level qualifications had improved year on year. Applied general qualifications remained “significantly above” national figures over the last five years.
In regard to key stage four, the progress 8 score was among the highest for Cheshire East and put the school onto the department for education’s “above overage” category, only slightly off the “significantly above” category.
Attainment also remained “significantly” higher than the national average.
Year eight attainment 8 score was significantly higher than both national overages and the average for Cheshire East. The average grade per entry for Sandbach High was 5.24 compared to 4.88 for Cheshire East and 4.63 nationally.
The Ebacc average point score for 2023/4 was 4.70 compared to 4.08 nationally.
Finances
The report said that the year to 31st August saw a decrease in revenue reserves of £388,000 to £735,000.
Unrestricted income reserves showed a surplus of £322,000. The figure included the insurance payout for repairs to damage caused by the kitchen fire last May.
The deficits reflected ongoing expenditure of reserves on a programme of estate improvements, IT infrastructure and school growth plan spending.
The main streams of funding for education during the year were grants received from the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the local authority. The academy had restricted income funds income of £9.4 million and expenditure of £9.5 million.
The report noted: “It is no secret that after construction of the current sixth form college building and a two-storey extension to the Henshall building, the trust found itself in financial difficulties in 2020 that required a period of close financial management and more robust longer term cash flow forecasting.
“The trust turned the 2020 deficit around and established a reserves balance that has allowed significant and long overdue investment in the trust estate over the last three academic years and going forward into the next couple of years based on our current whole school development plan.”
It added: “The trust has put significant investment into all its people from trustees and staff to students and their families with the programme of changes that has taken place over the last four years. The trustees appreciate that the major works on site have caused some disruption with timetabling and access to classrooms but overall the improvement in the buildings, the refurbishment of classrooms, main hall, science labs, the textile suite and even the invisible but critically important IT cabling have made a massive difference to the experience of working and studying within the school.”
The trust operates an academy for students aged 11 to 18 serving a catchment area in east Cheshire. It has a student capacity of 1,500 and had a roll of 1,391 in the school census in January 2024.
Admission falls to girls living in the catchment zones of partner primary schools: Elworth, Elworth Hall, Offley Junior, Sandbach Community, Sandbach Heath St John’s, Wheelock, Haslington, The Dingle, Rode Heath and girls living in the parishes of Arclid and Hassall and most of Betchton parish.
The trust employs 149 people: 87 teachers, 55 admin and support, and seven management.
(Photo: Sandbach High School).
