Schools facing catastrophic winter

[noblegiraffe]

Schools are starting their Autumn term facing an unprecedented funding crisis. Headteachers are becoming increasingly frantic in their disbelief that the government has done fuck all about it, and appears to be planning to continue to do fuck all about it.

There are few issues contributing -

The energy crisis - school energy bills are not capped, unlike household ones. To give an idea of the scale of the issue, Ormiston Academies Trust which sponsors 43 schools will see its energy bills rise from £5.1 million to £14.3 million. Grant Shapps, transport minister, says that schools could consider switching to LED lightbulbs.

Teacher and support staff payrises - the government have recommended payrises for teachers and support staff, but crucially will not be giving schools extra money to fund them. If schools give staff the recommended pay rise, they will have to cut services to fund this (even before you consider the energy bills)

The cost of living crisis - schools are facing increased prices just as households are. Food for the canteen, stationery orders, everything is more expensive. Sam Freedman tweets "Very rough calculation is that energy bills plus teacher pay increase plus higher food costs are going to add around £5bn to school budgets nationally. Just under 10% of the total budget. And none of it was built into the funding model."

On top of that, covid still needs to be considered. Last Jan/Feb schools were in chaos due to staff absences (the government widely trumpeted their call for an army of volunteers to step in, which didn't appear). At the end of the summer term, all the education unions wrote to James Cleverly, temp Ed Sec asking for a covid plan that included increased funding to schools for supply teachers to cover staff absence. Given that we haven't actually got a functioning government at the moment, I'm pretty sure he hasn't replied. Signs are that we're facing a bad flu season too, vaccinating school staff should be a consideration. Some schools already pay for the flu jab for staff, most won't be eligible for a covid booster, no idea what the impact of that will be. Obviously there will be pressure to close windows to keep any heat in, which goes against covid guidance for ventilation.

Some academy trusts appear to have large reserves which will help them weather the storm, most very much don't. twitter.com/ajjolley/status/1564562763443277825?s=21&t=nmM2Q_vFCmo5GzILNNKhfg

School leaders are reporting that they will have to make support staff and/or teachers redundant or pause recruitment, restrict heating, cancel school trips and extra curricular activities. This will inevitably have an impact on children, and on the quality of education on offer.

I'm not sure what either Truss or Sunak have said about the crisis facing education, all I've heard is wittering about grammar schools. An intervention is needed urgently.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/energy-bills-cost-of-living-crisis-schools-face-catastrophic-winter

Oh no! 😞

Schools are in for an awful time this year.

As an aside I have never understood why the decision was made to give free school meals and fruit to all of KS1 (plus milk for the U5's) if this was means tested surely that extra money could be used to provide breakfast for the children eligible who are likely to need it more than ever this year.

Means testing often costs more than it saves

And also it can lead to children being singled out and then bullied

I’m so worried about this. I’m a parent ex-teacher and I know how crazy tight budgets were 10 years ago. Now with an SEN child with significant needs and no ECHP I’m terrified that any support they get will be cut and they will be unable to safely stay in school and I will end up having to give up work, which will bankrupt us.
This effects all children since unsupported children with SEN will very often impact their classmates.

Anyone that thinks this shouldn’t be let anywhere near schools!

One of the issues with making it means tested is that it has to be applied for and some parents don't because they don't know they should / don't want the stigma / can't be bothered. This can lead to some vulnerable children not being fed properly as they slip through. That's why it was made universal in the first place.

Surely the government will have to do something?
Otherwise schools will just have to switch off their heating.

Anyone without actual knowledge of child development and education and, ideally, experience in the field shouldn't be allowed to oversee education. Anyone with even a little knowledge of schools wouldn't make ignorant statements like hers.

I am a member of the Confederation of School Trusts, they have been in contact with DfE about funding and teacher pay rises, but to no avail.

Trusts are meant to keep some reserves usually to cover at least one month's salary costs, which in a large trust will be quite a substantial amount.

And generally the most vulnerable do not apply.

You’re right to be worried- in many schools, budget cuts are already so fierce that learning support is only available where children have individual funding via EHCP. The era of general TAs for classroom support is long gone.

Is there any way you can pursue an EHCP if your child has significant needs?

Schools have been dealing with a decade of increasingly brutal funding, then massive costs resulting from Covid, and now the energy crisis. It’s heartbreaking to see the impact this has on children in schools, especially where those children currently struggling could absolutely thrive given the right kind of personalised support.

Indeed! Totally agree. I remember being a young fresh faced 20 something at the start of my career and being shocked that those in charge of education had absolutely no experience of working in a school in any capacity! Of course, the last decade of terrible education secretaries and terrible decision making has shown that despite it being the way our government functions, it is absolutely the wrong way to do things!

It's politics all over isn't it? We elect politicians who are elected based on over promising/outright lies about what can be achieved and are ANY depts headed by politicians with any experience?

You’re right to be worried- in many schools, budget cuts are already so fierce that learning support is only available where children have individual funding via EHCP. The era of general TAs for classroom support is long gone.

And it's getting worse. In some cases, the schools nominal SEN budget plus EHCP funding isn't actually enough to cover the costs of the support and adjustments the child requires. It's meaning that either the support can't be given or that it's given but requires reducing budgets elsewhere.

The government all send their kids to private schools so they do not give a toss.

We had an impromptu SLT meeting after A Level results day as we were all in and had been nattering about bills over WhatsApp anyway. For the pay rise, we will not replace staff leaving unless absolutely critical as we want to avoid redundancies, but we can't afford it.

For the bills? I am scared, as is our Head. At the moment the solution is to delay turning on the heating as long as possible and see how bad it really is. We did have extremely low temperatures when we needed ventilation and had our key worker students in during COVID, but we are talking temperatures no higher than 11/12C in a classroom in January, which is cold and painful after a while. Closer to the windows the temperature never rose above 10C. We had a very happy physicist playing with data loggers monitoring everything!

I can keep myself warm with layers and layers. I normally teach in a scarf and thick socks anyway because schools are cold. We can throw the uniform policy out and encourage thick jumpers, hoodies, gloves, hats. We will serve hot chocolate and tea at break and lunch to the students but, we shouldn't have to.

This will be a very long and hard winter.

She's fucking insane. She actually scares me with how irrational she is, and the fact she got so far in the leadership race.

It is in the news - you can read more about it here

www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/21/we-are-being-abandoned-when-the-energy-bill-goes-up-by-100000-a-day

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/29/leading-tories-call-on-new-pm-to-tackle-crisis-facing-schools-over-soaring-costs

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/aug/02/schools-in-england-face-funding-crisis-as-costs-soar-study-warns

God this scary. Our school has a school dog, I assume the insurance is going to be too much to continue having him in school as a start to save money. My relatives a primary school teacher and before all this she was buying and taking in boxes of cereal bars for children that didn't have breakfast.

Union's are calling for one off cost of living payments.
And a pay rise.

I'm all for them holding out but at the same time any increase is better than nothing at this time when there is no money.

I agree with your post noble esp as COVID hasn't gone away either.

And after the zero planning or protection for teachers and staff during COVID.

I don't agree with wittering about grammar schools at all.
I'm all for them, I just don't like how they are currently accessed.

Re the union's, again I agree with them and they're definitely needed to represent education staff.
Unfortunately some of them are so far left, so intrenched with bitter Tory hatred at all costs,it's hard to take them seriously esp after some of the advice during COVID

It is.

But also whenever anyone has tried to talk about schools - think back to covid - the response from current government was just "they want the kids to be at home and denied an education".

Unfortunately the current government aren't willing to discuss this - only to shut down the opposing sides with untrue accusations and dismissals.

And even more worryingly the general public brought into it because they want their children in school and most cannot afford themselves to worry about the actual nitty gritty of budgets etc.

There is quite a nationwide disrespect for teachers imo and it's been driven from the governments rhetoric.

And worse still there's talk Truss will put Badenoch in charge of education and she wants to "get rid of superfluous support staff and peripheral activities".

Our children will be expected to enter school and learn from the board and worksheets at the same speed and I fear children with send will suffer the most.

We used to provide meals for all students as we are in a high deprivation area and those that just missed the cut off were usually the most impacted. We offered a free breakfast club and lunch. Last year it dropped to only PP kids for both. This year there isn’t a breakfast club at all because we can’t afford it. When it was free and open to all 60% of our secondary schools attended. So that’s 400 children no longer eating breakfast everyday.

I teach food, we used to provide all ingredients and it was wonderful. Now it’s just for PP and instead of cooking weekly it’s every 3 weeks to keep costs down. Their education is being directly impacted there.

I think if schools are going to be that cold, dress codes for pupils AND staff need to go. It's hard to keep warm in smart clothes. I also have terrible circulation and once I'm cold, can't warm up. I find 5 or 6 layers reasonable for round the house when the heating is on. But my fingers are going to be screwed.

As an aside, there were no thermal tops left in asda today.

I also chip in about £90 a month on bits for school (pens/ingredients/tissues)

Is the BBC covering it, I wonder? The Mail? The Telegraph?

A lot of people only seem to read the Mail and regard the Guardian as full of left wing whinging!