School Development Fund
As a voluntary-aided school, St Edmund’s receives less funding for capital expenditure from the Local Authority than county primary schools. The shortfall in funding has to be obtained from the Catholic Church, which, in the Portsmouth Diocese, is achieved through membership of a Diocesan Schools’ Building Fund.
The Diocesan Schools’ Building Fund (DBF) was introduced in September 2000 in order to provide the contribution needed towards building and repair projects at our Voluntary Aided Schools. 50% of the Fund is provided by parishes regardless of whether or not they have access to a Catholic school; 50% of the Fund is provided by schools from donations from the parents of the children attending the school. In this way the whole diocesan Mass-going population and all parents of children in our schools share the Bishop’s commitment to our Catholic schools.
Membership of the diocesan fund is essential if the school is to develop, or even maintain, its facilities. The Diocese calculates the school’s contribution based on our pupil numbers. As there is no provision for this levy in the school’s state funding, the school has no choice but to ask parents to contribute to the cost.
Past contributions have allowed us to carry out the following school improvements, for which ordinarily funds would not be available:
- a new kitchen to allow us to serve our highly popular hot school meals each day from September 2014. As we had such a large take up of school meals we had to ask for even more funds from the diocese in summer 2015 to double the size of the existing kitchen.
- redecorating of parts of the school, with a plan to continue redecorating on a rolling program from now on
- a new PA system
- resurfacing areas outside the school
- refurbishing the Early Years environment including provision of a safe AstroTurf surface and the canopy
- screening of the fence around the school field
- installing a new electric gate at the front of the school and some of the storage sheds at the side of the playground
- a new roof over the whole School at a cost of over £200,000
- redectoration of the Early Years classrooms, including replacing old and dirty carpets with easy-to-clean laminate flooring
- repurposing of two classrooms to create an interventions room and a classroom for Tigers Group
In the future we hope to ask the Diocese for contributions towards:
- Refurbishment of the KS2 cloakrooms
- Forest School/Outdoor classroom area
We can only continue to make significant improvements like these if all families contribute to the School Development Fund.
The suggested family donation is £36 per year, less than £1 per family for every week of the school year. This can be paid by standing order with this form, by cheque payable to St Edmunds School Diocesan Building Fund or by Scopay.