A guide to the Afghanistan resettlement education grant

Information on local authority funding to provide education services for children arriving from Afghanistan living in temporary accommodation

Purpose

This funding is for local authorities to provide education services for children from families arriving from Afghanistan, currently in bridging accommodation. Some examples of what local authorities can spend the funding on include:

• the provision of a school place;
• providing a place for two, three and four-year-olds accessing the two-year-old, universal or 30 hours entitlements;
• funding the placement of larger clusters of children into schools and early years settings, including the hiring of additional and specialist teaching and non-teaching staff;
• providing transport to and from education settings;
• the provision of specialist and bespoke services, such as support for children with additional needs;
• free school meals;
• school uniforms.

Conditions

Local authorities must spend the funding in the 2021-22 financial year, and cannot carry it forward into the following financial year.

Children may be offered a school place in a local authority outside the one in which the child’s family is housed in temporary accommodation. In these cases, the local authority that receives the grant funding should send an appropriate amount to the counterpart authority providing the school place.

Allocation

The DfE have allocated funding to local authorities that are housing families arriving from Afghanistan in temporary accommodation; this accommodation is currently in bridging hotels funded by the Home Office. The allocations cover the costs incurred in the period 1 September 2021 to 30 November 2021 and are derived from £12m funding announced as part of Operation Warm Welcome on 1 September 2021.

The DfE have allocated funding on a per pupil basis for the three phases of education at the following annual rates:

• early years (ages two-to-four) – £3,000;
• primary – £6,580;
• secondary – £8,755.

The DfE will make a further allocation in spring 2022 to cover costs incurred in the period 1 December 2021 to 31 March 2022.