ABSTRACT
On Sunday 21 May 1989 The Observer, one of Britain's leading respectable Sunday newspapers, reported the view of Alan Smith, the Director of the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management, who claimed that headteachers of schools opting out under the new Education Reform Act (ERA) provisions would be faced with uncomfortable budgetary options of either expending limited funds on academic resources such as text books or on buying time at leisure centres. Smith anticipated that the 'pressure for results' would mean 'that leisure centre activities will be the first to go'. Moreover, 'single schools will be unable to negotiate the advantageous block rates at (leisure) centres currently achieved by local authorities. Poor individual schools haven't got a hope.' The Observer comments, 'a healthy mind in a healthy body seems to be one Victorian value that is increasingly under threat' (p. 19). Earlier in the year The Times Educational Supplement had reported that 'schools in Britain's most deprived inner city areas were facing swingeing cuts in their budgets under future funding proposals drawn up by their local education authority.' ERA's all-funding formulae are tightly controlled to ensure that 'all schools are treated the same' and that 'the number and ages of pupils' must be the most important factors in deciding the level of funds (The Times Educational Supplement, 1989, p. 1). A formula which took no consideration of the social context of the school or the backgrounds of the pupils, would, it was claimed, lead to a 'redistribution of resources to schools in more prosperous suburbs.' The effect would be to redistribute 'thousands of pounds from schools in deprived areas to more favoured schools in the suburbs and rural parts of the country.'
