SCHOOLS in and around Tavistock are set to receive a boost in funding as the Government announces more funding for schools across Devon.

Responding to lobbying from Devon councillors and MPs, the revised National Funding Formula sees schools across Devon set to receive extra funding than previously agreed for the academic year of 2018-19.

Devon County Council said schools across the county stood to gain £7.5- million more from the Government’s proposed new funding formula, released by Education Secretary Justine Greening the week before last.

Under the settlement, funding levels are being guaranteed countrywide at £3,500 per primary school pupil and £4,800 for secondary school students.

The county council now has to sit down with schools across the county to work out the budget for each individual school.

Devon County Council leader John Hart said the initial formula announced by the Government would have left two thirds of the pupils in Devon’s schools worse off.

‘We campaigned strongly against the previous formula with our schools and MPs, and I told secretary of state for education Justine Greening that the old formula could not stand when I met her earlier this year,’ he said.

‘The Government appears to have listened to our strong and united opposition to the previous formula and also to the national campaigning work we did with the f40 group, which represents the lowest funded education areas.

‘There is still some way to go but I am optimistic that our schools will see significant benefits from the new formula.’

Conservative MP for West Devon Geoffrey Cox said he welcomed the Government’s revised National Funding Formula as fairer for rural schools in his constituency.

‘This is a historic reform and one which I have been lobbying for, together with Devon MPs, for a long time and I welcome the significant improvement in the revised formula,’ he said. ‘It means, for the first time, the resources that the Government is investing in local schools will be distributed according to a formula based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country.

‘No longer will pupils in Devon be disadvantaged by a formula established under Labour of unjustly enriching Labour-dominated cities while the Shire Counties suffer. Parents in my constituency will remember that in 2009 funding per school pupil in London was a staggering £7,603, compared to just £3,842 in Devon and the gap between the grant for a Devon school child and the national average was nearly £400 a year.’