Government still don't give a shit about kids' education - schools lose out in spending review

[noblegiraffe]

There's a bit of a weird story today in the Times - claims are that the DfE didn't put in a bid for catch-up money in the spending review. The DfE says it did. Gav, who should have put the bid in has gone, so new guy Zahawi is off the hook. If there was no bid, then that means Rishi is off the hook for not giving the cash.

Either way, it means that there's very little extra money coming schools' way for the much vaunted but barely visible covid catch-up scheme. Sources say that schools may get £1-2 billion in the review, schools and heads wanted £5.8 billion, and of course the government's own catch-up advisor (who quit in disgust at the lack of money) said that in total £15 billion would be needed.

Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, said that the majority of catch-up would be happening in normal classrooms with the children's usual teachers, which makes me wonder where the teaching that would have been going on then will be happening instead.

The main focus of parental concern seems to be whether children are in school now, and if the answer is 'yes' then all is good. This is not true.

In the meantime, CAMHS has collapsed under the weight of record referrals and exam classes are still waiting to hear what will happen with exams next year.

Not just the government then?.....

Apparently not.

Can you remember the millions of threads of outrage at schools and teachers for inadequate remote provision and concerns that children were falling behind? No outrage at the government for showing no commitment to supporting children in making up for the months out of school?

This is sad and appalling and entirely predictable. This government were never going to commit the serious money that schools needed - and actually given how underfunded many schools are currently, realistically that money would have gone to plug existing gaps in many cases rather than dedicate new resource to recovery. It's a mess.

I'm also baffled as to why people don't care more, but I think perhaps it's a fundamental problem with issues of educational equality - no one wants to really talk about it. The people who often 'make a fuss' about this kind of thing tend to have children who benefit from educational inequality, and people whose children are suffering from it often don't like to hear about it. No one wants to confront the fact that their child's life chances are being affected. So I think there's a lot of burying heads in sand all round.

I've worked in teams that deal with SR bids. I highly doubt DfE "forgot" to include it. Finance staff are dedicated to these tasks, they're not writing polices or challenging government or anything like that, they literally do Finance. Why would they miss out something fundamental to their forecasts? Far more likely the government hasn't prioritised education again. 🙄

So they just forgot about our children?! I think that says it all really. Combined with discussion about the changes they want to make to repaying tuition fees, it really seems like they want a future where a significant part of the population are only minimally educated so they can be pushed into low skilled work.

@Alm1986

I've worked in teams that deal with SR bids. I highly doubt DfE "forgot" to include it. Finance staff are dedicated to these tasks, they're not writing polices or challenging government or anything like that, they literally do Finance. Why would they miss out something fundamental to their forecasts? Far more likely the government hasn't prioritised education again. 🙄

Will repost without an unpaywalled link then if MN autofilter.

Yes, it seems extremely odd.

From the article "Two senior government sources said that the Department for Education (DfE) did not submit a formal application for catch-up funding. They said that this was greeted with “incredulity” by Downing Street and the Treasury."

And "This was contested by a source at the department, who said that an “ambitious” bid for catch-up funding had been submitted."

So who is lying, why do I suspect it's Rishi and how can we find out??

Link to the Times article: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/school-funding-under-threat-as-chancellor-rishi-sunak-reins-in-spending-cfnfk8zlf

Story from the Daily Mail not behind a paywall www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10036519/Education-faces-hardest-hit-Rishi-Sunaks-spending-review.html

Doesn’t surprise me sadly. It’s a bit like when they promise the NHS millions- it never actually materialises. The Government are all talk, they say what they think will satisfy the public and then do something entirely different on the quiet.

Yes they will blame the DofE in fact they will blame anyone except themselves.

Is it a case that all schools are created unequal? My daughter goes to an outstanding state primary (faith) school with a broad, rich curriculum, specialised teachers for sports, music and languages, swimming lessons, clarinet, gymnastics. There’s a band, an orchestra, they take part in singing competitions with other schools. Each class has a teacher and a TA. Most of the TAs have their PGCE. No additional funding for pupil premium as only 1.5% in the school. 97% of kids achieve expected SATS and 30% achieve at higher level so academics are good too.

The point of it is, we couldn’t ask for a more fantastic school but presumably the school my child attends gets no additional funding compared to other schools so I’d love to know what the discrepancy is. Is it purely down to efficiency and a strong ability to budget and plan well?

@DeborahAnnabel - i think when over 75% of schools are posting a deficit budget you start to think maybe there isnt enough money. If only a few schools are struggling its more likely to be mis management but 75% of school who were largely not in deficit 7 years ago and were balancing the books fine are now struggling.
But reasons your school may be ok is it might have been carring a large surplus from previous years ( which should have been spent on previous children but wasnt and now is being used). There are lots of other variations so a faith school can recieve funds from the church if it is voluntary aided not controlled and this can be a lot. PTA support varies hugely too. So where i work the PTA raises about 9k a year for a tiny school and it pays for recorder lessons and lots of nice to haves. Where my children went the PTA raised about 3k a year for twice as many children as the intake was much poorer. Things like morning clubs in some schools are a paid for service that raises funds but in poorer schools might be a free service (that uses funds) to ensure poor children get fed.
Then you have the ability of the school to make money itself. Some schools are better located and equipped for lettings due to the type of hall and parking.
Capital funding is different but again some schools are maintaing a victorian building or a 60s asbestos and cladding nightmare.

Tories. They'd take us back to the 1850s if they could. They're just gaslighting the population now.

presumably the school my child attends gets no additional funding compared to other schools

Faith school? Church funding?

@rocklamp

Tories. They'd take us back to the 1850s if they could. They're just gaslighting the population now.

Yep and being quite successful at it too

Yes I see what you mean. Our PTA raises about £40k a year but I though that would be a drop in the ocean in a schools budget.
Genuine question though, was education any better during the 15 or so (not from the UK so hazy on details) years that Labour was in government?

Are there some people who genuinely think the Labour Party is going to solve everything? Or since this is a schools thread, are schools all suddenly going to be fantastic, just bring in the Labour Party?

Genuine question though, was education any better during the 15 or so (not from the UK so hazy on details) years that Labour was in government?

It was certainly better funded.

I didnt work in schools 15 years ago. I can only say what has happened over the last 8 years. The impact of cuts is felt most by the most vulnerable - SEN is a mess. This has a knock on for other children too. In addition Staffing is generally cut to the bones there are stresses in the system wheras a supply might have come in before with the TA supporting, now its a TA on their own but that TA should have been elsewhere. Schools are very good at making it look like everything is fine. Teachers also spend a lot of there own money buying classroom supplies.

I've been a teacher for 15 years. The loss of our borough's language service, which provided a lot of EAL support, a reduction in budget meaning fewer TAs and therefore less intervention support, which also has a knock on effect on SEN support. It's much harder to obtain an EHCP and more support for SEN children than it used to be. We had a 2 year old unit which lasted a year as there wasn't enough funding to keep it going. We had ESOL lessons for parents which we haven't been able to bring back. Surestart centres have gone. Tories have decimated education but added more for us to do than ever before .

When I was a SENCo, I had two full time teachers and 25 TAs, to support the extensive SEND need in the school. As well as the mainstream, there was a unit for children with SLCN needs and two speech therapists spent two days a week in school.

Last week was, apparently, Teaching Assistant Day. That school posted a phot of the current TAs. There are 8. No provision for SLCN at all. Children with SEND have been cast aside.

My DC is in Yr6 and has fallen behind. No catch up provided. It's appalling the Gov are letting the longterm educational prospects of these children nosedive.

This Government don't give a toss about state school children.

@DeborahAnnabel i posted these facts on a recent thread:

in the 10 years between 1997-2007 the core "per pupil" funding rose by 48% in real terms

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6564933.stm

When expressed as a proportion of GDP, education spending peaked in 2009-10 and 2010-11 at around 5.5%, its highest since the mid-1970s. The subsequent decline has took it down to below 4% in 2017-18
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01078/

@DeborahAnnabel

Yes I see what you mean. Our PTA raises about £40k a year but I though that would be a drop in the ocean in a schools budget. Genuine question though, was education any better during the 15 or so (not from the UK so hazy on details) years that Labour was in government?

Are there some people who genuinely think the Labour Party is going to solve everything? Or since this is a schools thread, are schools all suddenly going to be fantastic, just bring in the Labour Party?

I have worked in schools since 1992. The short answer to your question is yes.

Obviously there is a longer, more nuanced answer about 'reform' and Blairite ideology.

Are there some people who genuinely think the Labour Party is going to solve everything? Or since this is a schools thread, are schools all suddenly going to be fantastic, just bring in the Labour Party?

IMO the Labour Party are shit at education policy. We've got this massive crisis in school funding, a critical shortage of teachers and they're fannying around talking about cutting charitable status to private schools which will, as far as I can see, cause an increased burden on state schools that are in no fit state to take it on. State schools need proper investment first.

I can't remember their 2019 manifesto particularly, scrapping SATs and suchlike. What teachers and schools really want is proper funding for SEN and external agencies like CAMHS, proper investment in buildings, sorting out teacher retention. We don't want massive overhauls of the curriculum and exam structure again. We're tired of it.

I've generally found the Lib Dems to be more sensible on education.

School funding was in dire straits before the pandemic.

Some kids who needed laptops while schools were closed didn't get them until schools went back. Months of education missed.

Others who did have access to technology didn't engage in remote learning for various reasons.

Even those who did engage in remote learning have gaps.

Schools barely had the resources to teach the curriculum as it is. Sir Kevan Collins recommended a massive programme of tutoring, extra curricular engagement, sports in order to help children recover.

This government thinks a handful of hours of zoom tutoring will sort it. And by 2023, schools will be expected to pay 90% of the cost.

My school Is currently trying to get many year 11s to drop to 8 GCSEs and use the time of the extra lessons to catch up on English and maths… not sure who is staffing it though?!!

It'd be nice to know what is going to be on the GCSEs next summer so that we have time to plan.

Ofqual said that the results of the consultation would be published in a couple of weeks....three weeks ago

Do any teachers here know what the baseline data is looking like for Year 7's starting secondary yet? As they had a long gap in Year 5 and a gap in Year 6?