Govt announces huge cut to schools funding, redundancies

[noblegiraffe]

Yesterday the government announced that there would be huge cuts to schools funding and this would mean larger class sizes, less support for SEND pupils and a smaller subject offering.

You might have missed this as it was framed as a generous pay rise for teachers.

This pay rise will be massively below inflation and therefore represent a large pay cut for experienced teachers, where ‘experienced’ means that they have been teaching for 5 years. The pay rise for new teachers is well below (due to inflation) what was promised in the 2019 Conservative manifesto as necessary to tackle the teacher recruitment crisis. schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-announces-5-pay-rise-for-most-teachers-in-2022-23/

However, poor as the pay offering is, the critical issue is that the government isn’t going to fund it. Schools would need to fund these pay rises from their existing budgets, which will mean that either teachers don’t get the pay rise (this happens) or there will be cuts and redundancies in schools, or both.

School funding itself will only rise by 1.9% which, as everyone is acutely aware, will not be enough to deal with the across-the-board price rises. schoolsweek.co.uk/school-per-pupil-funding-to-rise-by-only-1-9-per-cent-next-year/

Schools have already made redundancies, cuts to SEN provision and subject provision over the last 12 years of dire education funding. We are now cutting deep into the bone of educational provision.

So when the government talk about accepting in full the pay recommendation from the pay review body whose hands the Treasury tied, or about selfish unions and greedy teachers, in the end it’s going to be the kids who are losing out, when their class sizes increase, their SEN provision is reduced, they can’t take the subjects that they want, and their school can’t provide them with a qualified teacher.

I thought the government had promised to spend more money on SEN support recently? Although I was very skeptical about it actually happening.

We are lucky to have 2 amazing sencos at my dc's schools but they are both overworked and not given enough funding so neither of them can provide what the children need. There are a lot more children with SEN in mainstream schools than there were when I was a child. But if the government want these children in mainstream schools rather than specialist then they need to provide proper funding and enough staff.

I know there have been previous cuts in schools. But nothing like the cuts to FE. DH’s college lost £3m funding one year then another £2.5m the year after. Adult skills courses lost 50% of funding, courses for 16-20yo didn’t suffer quite so much. They made over 150 staff redundant and replaced them with hourly paid agency staff who earned barely more than minimum wage. Many staff had their pay scale removed too, and were paid a flat rate of 23k which didn’t increase with experience. Just a taste of what can be expected if cuts to schools continue.

Totally appreciate that FE funding is dire. However there have also been massive cuts to school sixth form funding too in the past decade. The IFS says:

"Further education colleges and sixth forms have seen the largest falls in per-pupil funding of any sector of the education system since 2010–11. Funding per student in further education and sixth-form colleges fell by 12% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2019–20, while funding per student in school sixth forms fell by 23%. The latter will have partly driven cuts in school spending per pupil.
Funding is lowest in school sixth forms and sixth-form colleges. In the 2019–20 academic year, we calculate that funding per student was £4,600 in sixth-form colleges, £5,000 in school sixth forms and £6,100 per young person in further education colleges. Higher funding per student at further education colleges mainly results from a funding system that provides more for students taking vocational or complex courses, as well as to students from deprived backgrounds."

As sixth form funding usually contributes to whole school budgets, this has had an impact on the whole school. We've had to make massive alterations to our sixth form provision over the last decade. Kids have less choice and fewer teaching hours.

How did this get missed? Why isn't it major news? Disgusting.

So many schools wont be able to balance the books. The increase in money coming in doesnt match the increase in bills. Pay going up is only one increase. Gas, electric, paper, contractors, food, milk all more than 1.9% increase. Building maintenance put off til its urgent. There is only so low you can cut staff.
I wish people could see the decisions schools have to make.

School governor here. Known for a while since I am the Finance lead and the budget is running at a decent loss this year. Luckily there was some carry forward to cover but it will be a different story next year and is unsustainable.

In my area the STUPID council continue to build schools despite only 50% places being full (combo of brexit, COVID etc. and new estates not at full occupancy). This means schools running at less than capacity get even less funding but still have high fixed costs (building, teachers). We’ve already lodged complaints and I’ll be following up with our local MP as it’s literally madness.

Its not good.

That will certainly be a real problem in large swathes of London. More pressure on the budgets but schools not at full capacity i.e. even smaller budgets. I can see quite a few schools being forced to amalgamate and merge.

Disturbing thread about teacher supply which starts with this graph.

twitter.com/matilda__martin/status/1550500877043122176?s=21&t=bwzcwi2VHtHyDgmBaMflSQ

The rise to a £30k starting salary pledged in 2019 was supposed to help address this. If the rise for new teachers is barely keeping up with inflation, what then?

The we won't have any teachers, or nurses or firefighters but the government doesn't care. I am genuinely ashamed of the UK, the fact that the British public simply doesn't care about this. Apparently so long as they get a bit of tax off and feel marginally better by leaving the EU, it's all good. The fact that the UK basically won't have anyone working in the public sector is not a thing

Have to say I’m a little torn at the £30k starting salary pledge. No one can disagree with that in principle and is intended to attract new talent but how it’s been funded (or not) is the problem. Even if the govt covered the cost now, there will still be an issue with cycling through experienced teachers on a higher salary as they’re more expensive and backfilling with cheaper. Schools, like businesses, need a blend of experienced and new depending on circumstance. My experience is SLT will get the ‘cheapest’ going due to costs. So in my school now there is a void between the HT/Deputy and then seemingly everyone else is very junior/new which is highly problematic in other ways and has been challenged.

@Noodlicious I've definitely noticed it going around primary schools, all the teachers are about 24 with very few older ones till you get to HT. It can't be good for institutional memory or experience

My head has asked if I’m available for a some time next week….. I guess my hours are getting cut AGAIN. School Administrator on max salary point for my job and I don’t earn enough to pay tax!

I’m so gutted about this. Schools are already so underfunded.

im a little worried as i work in pastoral care and Sen at a primary school. Would my job be first 2 go?

(there’s quite a lot of sen staff at my primary school & 7 teachers)

If there's a teacher per class and each class is full, then yes, they'd be looking at their support staff for cost savings.

My school is part of a MAT and they managed to get rid of a lot of staff by making certain jobs cover more than one school, so LA primaries may also be under pressure to join MATs (most secondaries already have).

Yes we’re an academy. One that “requires improvement” as we’re in a very deprived area. Hence so much SEN staff.
jeeeeeesus

i was asked if I wanted to focus on pastoral care from Autumn but it’s not a role that’s essential. Schools manage without. I’m worried now :(

And as @noblegiraffe says there is a target for all schools to be part of a MAT by 2030.

@PinkPyjamasandabeer

Schools need a detailed document explaining how they’ve used pupil premium funding.

In my area the STUPID council continue to build schools despite only 50% places being full (combo of brexit, COVID etc. and new estates not at full occupancy).

Department for Education decision, not council. ( @Noodlicious)

Impact on SEN, yes poor practice but cost effective decision by an academy trust?

files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50189079

Across the first two terms of this school year, for example, there have been almost 4,500 occasions when pupils have been placed in the internal ‘seclusion’ rooms.

Unsafe or trying to avoid more poor publicity about such horrendous behaviour that a child has been left brain damaged.

www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/education/archbishop-sentamu-academy-closes-early-7367497

A shocking example of where we are heading through this governments lack of priority for educating our children.

I missed a word permit.. building. In the situation I’m describing it is a council issue working with local developers.

Yup the junior/infant school teachers here mainly seen early 20s too. They definitely go for cheap/pliable. Not sure if they're hoping they will grow with the Trust or what they'll do as the wage bill rises. Used to be lots of TAs and they were cut drastically a few years ago. It qlreqdy has been cut to the bone.

As for adult sector. So many areas have staff on zero hours ..

.

I’m chair of the finance committee for a single academy trust (a standalone academy school). Four years we had to make redundancies - posts like the school librarian so hardly frivolous extras. We balanced for a few years and have even managed to make some capital investment and invest in literacy, and sen provision- none of this is extravagant and all of it is needed. Now this years budget - our energy bills have gone up 300% god knows what will happen to other prices and now unfunded pay increases. We can’t afford it. we are lucky to have reserves but these will now go on keeping the lights on until we restructure staff (ie make cuts). There is a crisis coming in school support staff too, wages are too low to be sustainable.

The absolute farce of the way schools are funded needs to end. We don’t control our income and we don’t control our main expenditure yet we are supposed to set balanced budgets? There seems to be a pattern of allowing costs to rack up and up and then far too late announcing far too little funding - schools cannot invest, cannot recruit, cannot build provision as we are on a bloody rollercoaster- we get promised catch up funding, promised an end to austerity and then its ripped away.

i’d quit, but that wouldn’t help.

Our school has gone from a balance of experience, middle and new teachers to a total imbalance of new teachers.its tge same for TAs. We do stil have a few but we have moved from experienced TAs with lots of quality training at the top of pay grades to new TAs with no training at the bottom of paygrades and ditto admin.

Everyone is on fixed term contracts too.

It’s been the case for some years that new appointments were fixed term and based on finance in many cases. Which is of course, one of the reasons why young teachers are leaving after a few years. They see no pay progression, no more experienced staff to support them after induction and an ever increasing workload.

90% of school leaders in a snap poll said that they would be unable to meet the pay rise award from their existing budgets.

They also criticise the government for making this announcement after school budgets have been set and scrutinised.

www.tes.com/magazine/leadership/finance/teacher-pay-rises-school-budgets