Reminder: Dedicated Schools Grant Consultations 2026-27
The Dedicated Schools Grant resources
The annual Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) consultation is running between 3-24 October 2025, and as ever we welcome as many contributions to the consultation as possible, from a wide range of education stakeholders. The focus of the mainstream schools' consultation is centred upon technical funding allocations this year and understanding potential impact, while the Early Years consultation focuses on increasing 2-year-old take up, particularly for children from families receiving additional support (FRAS).
This year, in response to feedback, we have prepared a series of online resources, available here, to provide an overview and broader context of the Dedicated Schools Grant, the National Funding Formula and other aspects of schools funding.
Mainstream consultation
The annual consultation normally occurs following the Department for Education (DfE) providing the provisional DSG allocations, allowing technical papers to be prepared to illustrate the potential impact of proposals under consultation and providing schools and academies with an indication of their following year's funding to support future planning. Unfortunately, the publication of this provisional information has been delayed by the DfE, as it was last year, and so this approach is not possible, however the consultation still needs to take place on the same timeline to allow the necessary decisions to be taken to confirm schools funding on the normal timescales.
Where possible, technical papers to illustrate potential impact will be provided using current funding levels, and 'normal' technical papers will be distributed with provisional 2026-27 funding information as soon as possible following DfE publication.
Briefing and engagement sessions
During the consultation period, we are holding offering online briefing and engagement sessions intended to support you to understand the contents in relation to the consultation, the scale of change happening in Norfolk and how you can be a part of it, and to support you to be able to respond effectively to the consultation.
Mainstream consultation sessions
To ensure you have the opportunity to ask any questions relating to the technical aspects of funding allocation in the Dedicated Schools Grant proposals, a reminder that there are three sessions available this year:
- 08 October 2025 , 2:00-4:00pm: In person at County Hall, Norwich (click on the link to RSVP)
- 09 October 2025, 3:45pm-5:45pm: Online via Teams (click on the link to join) - this meeting will be recorded and shared after the event
- 22 October 2025, 3:45pm-5:45pm: Online via Teams (click on the link to join)
Early Years consultation sessions
We will also cover the Early Years (EY) consultation as part of the mainstream schools briefing and engagement sessions for those settings that are part of a school, to mitigate the need for schools to attend more than one session. However, the primary focus of those sessions will be mainstream school funding. and so early years-only providers may prefer to attend one of these EY consultation sessions instead.
- Tuesday 14 October - 7pm - 8pm, MS-Teams meeting; book on the Portal using course code P153
- Wednesday 15 October - 10am - 11am, MS-Teams meeting; book on the Portal using course code P154
These dates for both sets of briefing and engagement sessions, along with meeting links, can also be found on the Key Events calendar here.
As the consultation period goes on, we will publish responses to questions that arise during any of the consultation events alongside the consultation materials that we have published on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) consultation web page.
