I ROUTINELY invite school governors and headteachers to meet ministers in London, as I think this is the most effective way of conveying an understanding of educational issues from the coalface.

This Monday, I hosted the two heads of Bishop Wordsworth’s and South Wilts in London and we met with Schools Minister Nick Gibb MP to discuss the draft proposals for a national funding formula. This has long been sought in Salisbury, given the historic inequality in education funding that means Wiltshire has been the sixth worst funded local authority per pupil.

The proposals, although giving a welcome uplift of 2.6 per cent for Wiltshire as a whole, involve a range of outcomes for our local schools. Among our secondary schools, one school gains over 11 per cent while both grammars receive a reduction of 2.9 per cent.

While it is obviously right to acknowledge and fund some additional resources for cohorts of students who have greater need, be it in terms of eligibility for free school meals, pupil premium, English as an Additional Language or low prior attainment, if a formula double or triple counts these factors, you can begin to challenge the viability of those schools who do not have high numbers in those categories.

It seems to me that what is needed is a mechanism to “normalise” these increases across schools serving the same population, so that while bigger increases and corrections will go to schools serving areas which have higher needs, we do not inadvertently threaten the viability of those schools that deliver the best academic outcomes. Our grammar schools do a great deal to encourage applicants across the local primaries and provide a strong academic option for 16-18-year-olds, with many pupils choosing to join the Sixth Forms having studied elsewhere beforehand.

I hope that the effective representations made by Stuart Smallwood and Michele Chilcott, the respective heads of Bishop Wordsworth’s and South Wilts, will have been heard and some amendments to the formula are introduced to avoid the 14 per cent range in outcomes that we saw in the proposals.

As always, I remain interested in the financial details of every school in the constituency and I am always available to discuss the financial settlement of any school or visit, and to visit pupils, staff and parents as requested.