Financial assistance for schools is payable by the Commonwealth each year, based on a formula in Division   2 of this Part. The formula produces the Commonwealth share of a total amount of funding. Most schools will move to that share over a period of transition years.

All schools are entitled to a base amount of funding for every student. Students and schools who need extra support will also attract additional loadings.

The base amount, and most of the loadings, are worked out by reference to an amount per student called the SRS funding amount. (SRS is short for schooling resource standard). There is a different SRS funding amount for primary and secondary students, which is indexed yearly.

The base amount for a school for a year reflects:

  (a)   the number of students at the school for the year; and

  (b)   the SRS funding amount for the year for a student at the school; and

  (c)   the capacity of the school's community to contribute financially to the school.

The following loadings are also provided:

  (a)   a loading for students with disability;

  (b)   a loading for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students;

  (c)   a loading for socio - educational disadvantage;

  (d)   a loading for students who have low English proficiency;

  (e)   a loading for schools that are not in major cities;

  (f)   a loading for schools that are not large schools.

The loadings (except the size loading) are a percentage of the relevant SRS funding amount multiplied by the number of students at a school that qualify for that loading. The size loading provides an amount based on the total number of students at a school. Small schools, and very small schools in very remote areas with a certain number of students, are entitled to the maximum size loading while large schools are not entitled to any size loading. All other schools are entitled to a proportion of the maximum size loading.