Charging and Remissions Policy

 

SCHOOL CHARGES AND REMISSIONS POLICY

General

The Authority recognises the valuable contribution which a wide range of activities, including educational visits and residential experiences, can make towards pupils’ personal and social education.  Such activities should be seen as an integral part of a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils.

The Authority aims to encourage and promote such activities within a general policy framework which offers maximum flexibility to Governing Bodies, and headteachers and their staff, to provide opportunities appropriate to the needs of their pupils and to local circumstances.

Charges

The Authority reserves the right to make a charge for the following activities organised by the Education Department:

  •  those organised for pupils outside of school hours or otherwise deemed to be an optional extra as defined in the Education Reform Act;
  •  those involving a board and lodging element and deemed to be within school hours;
  • individual instrumental tuition which takes place within school hours, unless it forms part of the syllabus of a prescribed public examination or the National Curriculum;
  • those involving the purchase or hire of instruments, materials, equipment and clothing (or the provision of them by pupils or parents) in cases where it has discretion so to do.
  • Where a pupil has not been prepared for a public examination by a school, the Authority may make a charge for the cost of entering the pupil for the examination if previously agreed by the parents.
  • If a pupil fails without good reason to complete the examination requirements for any public examination for which the Authority has paid (or is liable to pay) an entry fee then the Authority may recover the fee from the parent.
  • where the Governing Body of a school makes a charge in respect of an activity provided by the school for which provision is included in the school’s budget share, the Authority will take account in its resource allocation formula of the relevant proportion of the income accruing to the school for that activity.

Nothing in this policy statement precludes the Authority from inviting parents to make voluntary contributions towards the cost of providing education for pupils.  The school may ask for voluntary contributions towards the cost of trips and activities.

Remissions

Where the parents of a pupil are in receipt of:-

  • Income Support
  • Income-based Job Seekers Allowance / Universal Credit
  • Child Tax Credit (TC 602), as long as the parents do not receive a working Tax Credit and an annual income that does not exceed £16,190
  • Supported under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.

the Local Education authority will remit in full the cost of board and lodgings for any residential activity that it organises for the pupil if the activity is deemed to take place within school hours or where it forms part of the syllabus for a prescribed public examination or the National Curriculum.

The Local Education Authority adopts these criteria for remission in respect of other provision.

Where the Governing Body of a school adopts a remissions policy which is less generous than that of the LEA in respect of an activity provided by the school for which provision is included in the school’s budget share, the LEA will take account in its resource allocation formula of the relevant proportion of the income accruing to the school for that activity.

Reviewed:  July 2019