Dear Parent/Carer

 

This half-term has seen the completion of our budget statement for 2003/04, and the situation remains one of real difficulty.� You are probably aware that Cambridgeshire County Council was engaged in a position of conflict with the Secretary of State for Education, and the eventual settlement did not go far enough to help schools in the way we would have wanted.� Similarly, the council tax situation was �too little too late� to be of full benefit to us, given the position we have found ourselves in over the past few years.� As a consequence, we remain under-funded, and seem to have spent too many years chasing this situation on behalf of all our pupils and students as if they somehow were not entitled to a fair deal.� Our governing body has remained resolute regarding the standard of education we try to provide at St Ivo, and has not been prepared to see this changed beyond the obvious impact of a poor settlement.� The present budget is predicted to give a deficit of �200,000 by next April, actually just 3.5% of our budget, but still too much as far as we are concerned.� In spite of this, we continue to provide what we consider to be a good quality education for our pupils, and continue to be well supported by parents/carers in all of our endeavours.

 

We have now reached the exam zone!� Coursework deadlines have passed, Year 11 written papers have begun and the sixth form finishes this week.� We wish all of our pupils and students the very best during this time, and look forward to further good results this summer.

 

I hope you have a good half-term.� We re-open to pupils on Monday, 7 June.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Mahoney

Head

Next page