That’s the problem isn’t it? Money - however course structures are also to blame, and also the perceived ‘Need’ to compare one school against another.
This is why I call it industrialised teaching, its uniform and does not adequately take into account the needs of the learner.
The current set-up with the government targets takes no risks, and does not reach out, excellent learners must put up with material that does not challenge them enough, whilst other learners may well find the standardised stuff does not interest or inspire them - they become bored and fall behind.
So school heads go for more attainable courses to keep their figures high, dumbing down to the known easier awarding bodies - and the result is that the ‘hard’ subjects are lumped into a universal ‘science’ qualification instead of the rigour of physics, chemistry, biology etc.
Schools should be funded to run course that learners want to do, so if there are maybe a dozen who want to learn engineering, then fine, let them do so, instead of having the same learners study a subject that holds little interest for them.
Courses now only run if there are enough learners to make them viable, the prospect of someone maybe doing horticulture - an industry where we are especially short on higher level academics, or perhaps masonry - yes it can and does link in to high level maths with engineering aspects - how about acting, singing, performing - these are the directions we should choose.
What we have is mundanity, the learners have to conform to the school requirements, instead of it being the other way around, and that’s why vacations in term times are just a symptom of why education is just do dull.