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- Uncategorized (133)
- 10/03/2010: Budget growth, budget cuts and School Business Managers
- 09/03/2010: Easter discounts on direct mail and email work
- 04/03/2010: Last minute spending
- 03/03/2010: Don't mention the name of the secretary of state
- 28/02/2010: The strangest schools story of the week
- 22/02/2010: "How to increase your sales to schools by 10%"
- 19/02/2010: Selling to schools after half term to Easter
- 17/02/2010: You are probably not reading this
- 15/02/2010: The forgotten benefits of solo mailing
- 12/02/2010: Why blogs can be so amazingly effective when selling to schools
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Special schools updated
I have always argued that specialist schools make good targets when one is trying to find out what sort of market there is for a certain type of product. Most of our email lists, and all of our direct mail lists can be selected by school specialism (details at the end of this piece
79 more specialist schools have been designated in England in June 09. This brings the specialist school sector and academies to 92% of maintained secondary schools in England. (That is England only, not the UK).
Specialist schools have a focus on their chosen subject area but must meet National Curriculum requirements to deliver a broad and balanced education to all pupils.
There are ten categories of specialist school: Technology; Languages; Arts; Sports; Business and Enterprise; Engineering; Mathematics & Computing; Science; Humanities and Music.
Maintained and non-maintained special schools are eligible to apply for specialist status in any of these curricular specialisms. Special schools may alternatively apply for the special educational needs specialism.
Schools can also combine any two specialisms and in future application rounds schools may also apply to combine any of the 10 options with an Applied Learning specialism.
In 2005 the Specialist Schools Programme extended the choice available for maintained and non-maintained special schools, by allowing them to be specialist in one of the areas of the SEN Code of Practice:
- communication and interaction;
- cognition and learning;
- behavioral, emotional and social development;
- sensory and /or physical needs
To apply for specialist status, schools must raise £50,000 in sponsorship (less in the case of small schools with under 500 pupils on roll) and draw up a school and community plan to raise standards, increase provision and encourage take-up in their specialist subjects.
Their community development plan has to show how they will share the benefits of good practice, expertise and resources with other schools named in the plan and with identified groups within their wider community. The Government believes that widening schools’ options in this way means they are able to develop their individual strengths, promote innovation and spread good practice throughout the whole school system.
In order to help them develop their specialism, specialist schools receive the following additional funding from the Government: £100,000 (to be combined with the £50k sponsorship) for a capital project to enhance the facilities in the subjects related to the school’s specialism; and recurrent funding of around £129 per pupil per year to implement their specialist school development plans.
Special schools receive £645 per pupil with a minimum of £60,000 per annum to implement their plans. Specialist schools are expected to target around one third (one half for SEN schools) of their specialist school recurrent funding on sharing resources and expertise in their specialist area with partner schools and the wider community.
In 2003 the Government introduced a ‘Partnership Fund’ to provide support to specialist school applicants that can demonstrate their sustained efforts to find the £50K sponsorship have been unsuccessful. The fund is administered by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust in accordance with DCSF criteria. 410 schools have benefited so far.
A total of 33 Local Authorities are now 100% specialist: Bath and NE Somerset, Barnet, Bedfordshire, Blackpool, Brent, Bromley, Cornwall, Devon, Durham, Ealing, Gateshead, Harrow, Hartlepool, Herefordshire, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Middlesbrough, North Lincolnshire, North Somerset, Plymouth, Reading, Rotherham, Rutland, Southwark, Shropshire, Thurrock, Trafford, Wakefield, Walsall, West Berkshire, Wigan and York.
Hamilton House Mailings can select its Personal and Preference email lists and its direct mail lists according to specialism. The new specialist schools will be added to the database in the next few weeks and will be available for mailing from September. There is an approximate list of specialist schools at http://www.directmail.org.uk/School_lists2.pdf - but these totals do not include updates we have done in the past term - for the very latest figures please call 01536 399 000.
Tony
Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.