THREE of Bradford’s biggest schools have been caught up in a dispute with the Government over attempts to slash funding for their sixth forms.

The Department for Education has published figures on its website stating that a total of £225,083 has been cut from Post-16 Funding for three of the city’s schools, namely Hanson Academy (£124,090), Tong High School (£62,595) and Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College (£38,398).

The withdrawal of funding was imposed on the basis that the schools were not meeting a Government requirement that means a student who joins a sixth form must already have a grade C at GCSE level in both English and Maths, or continue to study the subject and resit exams while in the sixth form. If this criteria is not met, the Government can claw back half a school’s funding, per student.

However, Hanson Academy and Tong High School have hit back, saying the deduction was down to an “administrative error”, while Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College said it only offered Level 3 courses with a requirement that English and Maths had been passed.

A spokesman for Hanson said: “All our sixth formers have the English and Maths qualifications or are retaking them. The figures quoted are out-of-date. They were due to an administrative error going back some time.

“The DfE was using GCSE English Literature data not English Language to calculate the funding. We challenged this using an external expert and the error was amended, preventing us from losing any funding.”

Meanwhile, a Bradford Council spokesman said: “In the case of Tong School we understand the deduction was because of an administrative issue. The school has subsequently appealed against the funding deduction and has submitted evidence that pupils were studying English and Maths and is awaiting a decision.”

And Richard Hughes, head teacher at Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College (BBEC), said: “We have no students in BBEC Sixth Form who are resitting English and Maths GCSE.

“We only offer Level 3 courses with a requirement that English and Maths GCSE have been passed.”

Three other schools in the district appear to be affected by the cuts, but it is not clear if they too will be appealing because none of them provided a comment when approached by the Telegraph & Argus. They are Oasis Academy Lister Park (£33,283), Laisterdyke Leadership Academy (£29,048), and Belle Vue Girls’ School (£19,295).

The council spokesman added: “There is a nationwide issue as a result of technical changes to post-16 funding.

“Bradford Council works closely with schools and colleges to ensure that they are up-to-date with, understand and follow funding guidelines.”

Ian Murch, of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Trying to take any money from a school because its results are not good enough is not only penalising the school but the children who go to that school by ensuring that the results are worse in the future than they are now. It’s crackers and idiotic.”

Asked about the apparent ‘administrative error’ on the part of the DfE, Mr Murch said: “This is the type of thing that happens when you set up ridiculous systems and then try to intervene in places you know nothing about by just looking at statistics.”

A school worker source, who works in the Bradford area, said: “Since 2014 it has been a Government requirement of Post-16 funding to ensure that every student who joins a sixth form/college, who does not already have a C-grade in both English and Mathematics, continues to study the subject and sit exams until they do, or until they leave.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “Every young person should have access to an excellent education and we have protected the base rate of funding for all post-16 students until 2020 to ensure that happens. We’ve also ended the unfair discrimination between colleges and school sixth forms and we now ensure funding is based on student numbers rather than discriminating between qualifications.

“On top of this we are providing more than half a billion pounds this year alone to help post-16 institutions support students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with low prior attainment.”

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