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

Was it ever required? I think it was suggested that windows were opened to improve ventilation, but many schools just don't have windows that open so they couldn't make it mandatory.

So it'll be open them if you can but waste what little heat can be given, or close them and risk becoming ill with colds/flu/Covid/monkeypox/whatever is doing the rounds.

It's not going to be good for the nation's children to be cold at home and cold at school is it?

Now that does make me want to cry. What is this country coming to?

The amount of uproar about kids wearing masks versus lack of shit-giving about kids being freezing all day (or boiling, when it was the heatwave).

Pity the us4them group don’t fight for additional school funding if they care so much for children’s education

Teachers, too. Plenty will have their own health situations and being extremely cold is less than ideal, especially older teachers or those with clinical vulnerabilities.

And nobody - child and adult alike - learns well if freezing cold.

It's probably a forlorn hope, but given the scale of energy costs cited in this thread, would a school have potential to have solar panels installed? They are unusual in not having night time demands on any real scale - almost solely daylight energy use - and most have large expanses of roof. The capital outlay would be an issue, of course, but the costs savings might be huge, surely? If electricity bills were £18,000 a month last spring, and about to get infinitely worse, then might it not be worth considering? You could have a large array of panels plus a battery fitted for the cost of two months of energy, at those rates.

Apologies to teachers here if that's not in any way a realistic suggestion.

Some of our local schools already have solar panels

That's good - hopefully it will at least blunt the edge for them.

It's something our SBM has looked into and priced up, just in case we can get it done. Even if it's just the panels with no batteries, it could potentially save money but we have no definitive answer yet.

Absolutely.

Where's us4them now?

Why aren't they campaigning?

Pro a sky news aisle after a few years of campaigning to increase their risks of a potentially serious virus they've now got their easy solution to making kids ill - no food or heat.

That would be because they never actually gave a shit about education, it was all about making sure that they could get back to their lives.

I think the uproar will come it’s just people have their heads in the sand at the minute.

It will be back to home learning on MS Teams by Christmas me thinks. Schools can’t afford the heating and won’t be able to open safely.

I wonder if Trusts with both Primaries and Secondaries will prioritise heating in Primaries so keep the children in school and do some remote provision for some year groups in Secondaries to reduce heating bills if necessary

You know how energy companies have been refusing to supply pubs and other businesses because they don't think they will be able to pay their bills. Can they do that to schools?

In colder parts of the country I think secondary school teachers could be doing that for months since Liz Tryss has ruled out doing anything to help anyone.

I left my TA job last Christmas. The school advertised twice but still couldn’t fill the position so had to cover with existing staff (which they were probably grateful for when the government announced the pay rises). The HT left at the end of the Summer term and they’re starting the new school year with no HT. Things are very bad in education. I don’t envy any of you still working in schools.

There would be an outcry as it would stop parents working.

The government can get lost if they think I am leaving my teenagers at home all day to do remote learning. They need to fund heating.

They need to fund heating

It honestly feels like nobody in government actually cares if children are cold or hungry. As long as the MPs can still get subsidised steak and wine for £4 every day in their nice warm rooms, they’re alright!

In that case, they may just direct you to the coming "warm banks".

Utter ridiculous: we're a G7 country!

No they need to have schools open. They would not be allowed to just close secondary schools. Parents would go mad.

I dont think closing is a risk.

They might just be uncomfortable with few resources.

I expect the schools will be forced to stay open but the children and staff will be very very cold.

Staff strikes will close the school though.

I was joking but, actually, if the school cannot pay the bills, they may have little choice. No-one will be happy: not teachers, not parents, not children. But unless the Government cares about your unhappiness then it won't act and this Government doesn't have much form for caring.