Information on school funding

The Department of Education and Training publishes school funding to provide transparency on school resources for current students.

School funding uses

Schools have the flexibility and autonomy under the School Resourcing Model to use their funding, together with school held cash, to deliver educational programs and services that meet the needs of their current students and school community.

Expenditure related to the delivery of educational programs and services will generally include employee costs, teaching and learning program costs, professional development, relief staff and other operational costs.

The School Resourcing Model

The School Resourcing Model is the model used by the department to fund schools. The model has three funding components: Student funding (per the student needs-based funding formula), Facility funding and Targeted funding.

The School Resourcing Model funding is managed by schools and used to deliver teaching and learning programs, fund professional development, relief teacher and other operational costs. Schools should use their resources to match student need, improve outcomes and use the funds provided in the year for the current year’s cohort of students.

In addition, there are centrally funded direct school costs that are administered and paid for centrally on behalf of schools. This covers direct school costs such as principals’ salaries, teacher remoteness allowances, teacher relocation costs, teacher housing, remote study leave, workers compensation and maternity, parental and long service leave.

The differences between the School Resourcing Package and the School Resourcing Model

The School Resourcing Package (SRP) includes the School Resourcing Model which consists of school managed resources and resources that are centrally managed by the department. The SRP also includes additional resources provided by the department for the strategic focus areas of:

• Strengthening instruction for young Territorians
• Improving cultural responsiveness
• Building the foundations for learning
• Supporting successful transitions beyond schooling
• Engaging every child and student in learning
• Building an expert education workforce, and
• Providing differentiated support for early childhood education and care services, schools and communities.

How to find a school’s total School Resourcing Package

The MySchool website provides information on the total resources (direct and indirect) for a school. The financial information is based on expenditure for a completed calendar year.

Explaining student needs-based funding

The student needs-based funding formula provides equitable distribution of funds on a per student basis. The student needs-based funding formula uses individual student information collected and validated by principals as part of the National August census to build a needs profile of students enrolled in each school.

The student characteristics used to weight the student needs based funding formula are: year level, socio economic status, Aboriginal status, Aboriginal concentration, remoteness of a school, English as a second language, school size and distance education.

How schools determine resources allocation

Schools develop and deliver strategies in the funding year, to address the needs of their students. School representative bodies provide strategic oversight of the use of these resources while principals deliver the operational strategies through the teaching and learning program and school operations. Resource planning focuses on using the total annual funding within the year so as to provide current students with the best possible opportunities to engage, grow and achieve.