Freedom of information response
Treetops School VB placement provision and costing
1. What the costs are for this academic year and then for the next academic year (2024-25) for a VB placement at Treetops (main) school?
2. Can you provide a breakdown of the costing for the VB placement?
3. Can you confirm all of the provision that is included in the costings?
4. If the provision includes ABA, then can you break down how many hours this includes (in breakdowns of daily,weekly and annually). 4. If this provision costs covers funding staff, can you give full details including ratio.
5. Can you confirm if you provide any additional top up funding for a VB placement at Treetops?
1. The funding that is allocated to Treetops Special School is based on agreed band values which is then provided as a total budget for the school allocated as set out in the table attached. The Academy then determines how this funding is used to best meet the needs of each child.
The band values in place at Treetops are shown below, VB = £36,704 currently, increasing to £37,805 from September for Academic Year 2024/25. This is the appropriate total to compare the costs of a VB placement at the school.
2. The costs for an ABA/VB placement are shown in the table above regarding the Banding. Any breakdown of the use of this funding would not be held by the Local Authority but would be the responsibility and overview of Treetops Multi Academy Trust.
3. The total budget for the academy which is shown in the table above is the funding that would cover all of the provision for a child placed on a ABA/VB place in the school. This would include all direct class-based and wider school-based staff, equipment, resources, buildings and administrative costs.
4. The Local Authority does not set a prescribed ratio for the deliver of the provision for these pupils. The allocation of staffing is the responsibility of the school and therefore this information would be held by Treetops MAT
5. There can be occasions where the school may make a request though the SEN processes for additional funding to cover the costs of providing additional staffing for pupils which are due to exceptional needs present at the tie of the request. These requests are responded to by the Local Authority to provide additional support where this is required and is not available through the funding that has been allocated through the budget setting process and the funds show in the table above.