Financial Benchmarking

The DfE publish information to compare a school or trust's income and expenditure with similar establishments in England. The comparison is made against schools of a similar size, pupil demographic and geographical area that allows stakeholders to compare a school's expenditure for different characteristics.

 It can be useful to consider the following questions when benchmarking between schools:

• If your expenditure differs compared to other schools, in what areas?
• In what other areas do you differ that could account for this difference? 
• Is there a similar trend year on year? If not, why not?
• What does the comparison tell you about your differences in approach or spending priorities?
• What can you learn from other schools’ approaches?

Although schools are chosen to be 'similar', there will always be differences between them that could account for significant differences between the income / expenditure of one or more of the characteristics. Too truly compare schools, it is important to fully understand the context of both schools being compared to ensure that misleading conclusions are not being drawn. 

Click here to see how we compare to similar schools.