The government is banking on parents not caring about children or education

[noblegiraffe]

There have been requests on other threads that posters email their MP if they are concerned about what is going on in education and someone asked if there were some links to statistics or stories that posters could use.

I have, over the next few posts, tried to break down the main issues so that parents can pick out bits that they are affected by/concerned about so that they can email their MP in a personal way.

The issues I've written a bit about and put links for are:
Funding
SEN
Mental Health
Poverty
School buildings
Teacher recruitment
Teacher strikes

So you could write a bit about how your kid hasn't had a maths teacher all year and awful recruitment statistics, or how strikes are affecting your child's education and how the DfE are being disingenuous about funding. Or about how you are concerned that school funding at state schools in relation to private schools will put them at a disadvantage. Or how your child's SEN support has been eroded as the school cannot afford teaching assistants.

Or just write your own thing.

The government is relying on education being a low priority for voters, but our children deserve better than this.

If you email your MP, the easiest way to do this is use http://writetothem.com
Ask your MP that your email be forwarded to Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education. This means that you will get a response from the DfE.

Funding:

The government has made a lot of noise about how it intends to return schools to 2010 levels of funding by 2025. This article from the IFS shows how utterly inadequate that is as a pledge, particularly when you consider how private school funding has risen in that time. Private school funding was roughly 90% higher per pupil than state school funding in 2021.
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/growing-gap-between-state-school-and-private-school-spending

Parents are increasingly being asked by schools to put their hands in their pockets to provide money to prop up inadequate school funding. PTA funds which used to be spent on 'nice-to-haves' are now more often being used to pay for basic education supplies. This approach means that schools in more disadvantaged areas will be left behind as parents in those areas cannot afford to subsidise schools. The cost of living crisis also means parents in more advantaged areas will increasingly struggle to pay contributions.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/17/schools-urge-parents-to-help-plug-funding-gaps-as-costs-soar

Lack of funding means schools cannot pay their support staff adequate wages. This has led to shortages of teaching assistants as they can earn more working in supermarkets https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/09/teaching-assistants-quitting-schools-for-supermarkets-because-of-joke-wages

There are similar issues with hiring enough exam invigilators https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/secondary/exams-gcses-2023-invigilator-shortage-fears-student-anxiety with the result that schools are struggling to provide smaller rooms for students with anxiety or other issues who will be adversely affected by sitting exams in the main hall. Some schools are refusing these requests, even with a doctor's note.

SEN:

Extreme waiting lists for assessments and diagnoses for SEN mean that it is now expected that schools will assess (not diagnose) and support children with SEN without the input of fully qualified professionals. NHS South West have announced that they will only accept children for referral for autism diagnosis if they are already in crisis, because schools can deal with the rest without diagnosis. This is putting more on schools at a time when they have fewer and fewer resources https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/26/children-put-at-risk-as-nhs-autism-assessments-are-cut-back

Special schools are disproportionately hit by unfunded support staff pay rises because they have proportionally more support staff than mainstream schools. This hasn't been taken into account when Gillian Keegan announced that her pay offer for teachers for next year was affordable within current school budgets https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/staff-pay-special-schools-fast-track-unviability

Mental health:

There has been a huge increase in children needing referrals for mental health crises post-pandemic https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-60197150
A third of children referred for mental health support last year did not receive any treatment https://schoolsweek.co.uk/rise-in-child-mental-health-demand-prompts-call-to-speed-up-school-support-reforms/  
The government response was to put specialist mental health teams into schools. This roll-out has been patchy across the country and the mental health teams are seeing an exodus of staff "partly because they struggle with the high workloads and “emotional intensity” of the work" https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/school-mental-health-teams-struggle-retain-staff
Robin Walker, former Schools Minister and current Chair of the Education Select Committee also made the link between an inability to deal with children's mental health issues and teachers leaving the profession "Worrying numbers of pupils are presenting in classrooms with symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder - all conditions that require medical diagnosis and attention. We shouldn’t expect our teachers to have to tend to these problems any more than physical illnesses.There is reason to believe that this is yet another burden that is driving talented teachers away from the profession. The first port of call with any illness should be the health service - with clinicians, not teachers - which is why our country’s overstretched Camhs need urgent reform." https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/robin-walker-significant-changes-teacher-recruitment

Poverty:

Children on free school meals bring extra funding to schools (pupil premium) to try to help schools address the disadvantages faced by those children. They may get free school trips, or free stationery and revision guides, or music lessons, on top of their free school meal. Unfortunately, despite very high inflation, the threshold for being able to claim free school meals remains at 2017 levels - a household must have an income less than £7400 after tax and before benefits to qualify. This means that there are thousands of children living in poverty who do not qualify. Schools are therefore having to try to make up the gap themselves, and are dealing with children who are coming to school hungry who don't attract free school meal funding. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/10/children-not-eligible-for-free-school-meals-going-hungry-say-teachers

School buildings:

Since 2010, due to systematic underfunding and the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future program, the school estate has fallen into disrepair. The DfE's own estimates put the cost of restoring the school estate to a safe condition at £11.4 billion https://schoolsweek.co.uk/repairing-englands-schools-will-cost-11-4-billion-dfe-admits/
Tens of thousands of children (in fact probably more) are being taught in buildings at imminent risk of collapse https://www.itv.com/news/2023-03-16/children-at-risk-in-schools-where-concrete-could-collapse-with-no-warning
Children and a teacher were injured when a ceiling collapsed in a primary school in 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-44072096
A ceiling collapse in Kent luckily occurred at a weekend https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/emergency-closure-of-school-185945/ 
The government has just announced £1.8 billion of funding for this year that will do little to address these problems https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/814e2baa-cd98-11ed-adc8-dcfa63cb4163?shareToken=c3cff1e0a528fdb062770793fd03e0de
An additional concern here is that asbestos is present in more than 8 in 10 schools. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/health-and-safety-watchdog-to-inspect-schools-asbestos-management/ Asbestos is safe if well managed. If school buildings are in disrepair and crumbling, then this could well impact asbestos management. HSE data shows that the asbestos-related cancer risk to school staff is higher than other professions, but the impact on children will be unclear https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/asbestos-cancer-risk-schools-urgent-need-address 

Teacher recruitment:

Teacher recruitment is a disaster, particularly in STEM subjects. The NFER's Teacher Labour Market report lays out the extent of the crisis. Only 59% of training places for secondary were filled last year and it's looking to be the same for September, despite large increases in bursaries. Teacher vacancies have doubled since the pandemic and there are fewer and fewer teachers out there to fill them. https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/5286/teacher_labour_market_in_england_annual_report_2023.pdf
This means that there are more and more classes without teachers. Some children in primary are being taught by teaching assistants, and in secondary by non-specialists or supply teachers. Some A-level classes don't have a teacher at all and are having to self-teach some of the syllabus.

One of the main reasons for the lack of teachers is teacher workload. A report was commissioned and then not published by the DfE, but has been leaked saying that nearly 1 in 5 teachers work at least 60 hours a week with an average working week of 48.7 hours. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/school-workload-crisis-exposed-in-leaked-dfe-report/ The government strike negotiations included negotiations over workload but the government rejected most union suggestions, including a requirement for schools to have a work-life balance policy and instead said that they would set up a Taskforce (i.e. do nothing).

Teacher strikes:

Against the backdrop of a crisis in teaching and inflation of over 10%, the government awarded most teachers an unfunded pay rise of 5% last September, throwing school budgets into disarray as the announcement came after budgets had been set. Headteachers then had to make cuts in order to pay the 5%. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-62261020 Unions balloted for strike action over the below-inflation and unfunded nature of the pay rise. With energy prices soaring and inflation causing massive price increases in school supplies, the government promised schools £2 billion in extra funding, but not till September 2023. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/autumn-statement-school-funding-boost-what-you-need-to-know/ The government then recommended a 3% pay rise for September 2023 - another real terms pay cut for teachers.
Strike action negotiations led to an offer of a funded one-off £1000 for teachers this year, and 4.5% for September - the catch being that most of the 4.5% would be unfunded - schools would be expected to use the £2 billion promised last September that they desperately needed for other things, to pay for it. The DfE insists that this is affordable on average for schools, acknowledging that many schools will not be able to afford it. https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/average-problem-teacher-pay-dispute It doesn't acknowledge that schools needed the £2 billion to plug gaps left by years of underfunding, and that funding will still be below 2010 per pupil levels, instead referring to it as 'headroom' in school budgets.
NEU members voted to reject the pay offer and more strike dates have been announced. The DfE have said that the offer was final, is now off the table and there will be no further talks. This intransigence and inability to accept the reality of the situation in education is directly affecting children. If we want an even adequate number of teachers to teach our children, then pay needs to be addressed properly.

If there's something pissing you off at the moment about your child's education, please let Gillian know.

https://www.writetothem.com/ and ask for a copy to be sent to Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education.

A massive thank you @noblegiraffe for all that. I have it on my list to email my MP tomorrow and this will make it much easier.

DD1 is about to take her GCSEs - so much disruption, not enough teachers, so little regard from the government to the teaching profession and our young people. Enough.

Thank you for this.

@noblegiraffe fantastic list. Thanks for spending your time doing this!

Thanks for this, @nobel.

I'll write about the buildings. I've recently switched from independent back to state and I've been shocked by the condition of the buildings.

Some schools are facing making staff redundant due to lack of funding

Yes, that point can’t be emphasised enough. Most of a school’s budget goes on staffing so underfunding means understaffing. It means less support for kids with SEN, larger class sizes and fewer subjects on offer.

God, I didn’t even mention the recent cruelty of Ofsted and the fallout from that.

Education really is in crisis.

Another amazing post NG. Well done and thank you.

Thank you for putting all this together, @noblegiraffe. I hope as many people as possible write to their MPs to press for education to be made a genuine priority.

It’s more that there aren’t that many school-age kids parents making up the electorate compared to other groups.

But it certainly sucks. And worth contacting MPs.

The government doesn’t exactly have voting groups that it can just afford to lose.

However, the government claims to care about the economy then runs education and health into the ground. How does that make sense?

That's interesting. During Lockdown, to read MN you'd think that the entire country had school-age kids and were therefore prevented from working if they weren't on the Key Worker list.

Didn’t even mention the impact of covid. Kids went through a pandemic where education was badly affected, the government’s own advisor resigned after his plans for a £15 billion covid catch-up scheme were rejected. And schools are still being funded below 2010 per pupil levels.

Thats mad, isn’t it?

What exactly do the government think will happen if they end up with a society that is only partially educated? 🤔 Slaves? Fertiliser? Spare parts? The mind boggles.

No healthcare, no education. Feudalism's making a return is it? Presumably the new peasant class will still need to be able to read the instructions on the packets of seeds.

I think they think it will be Labour’s problem to sort.

Absolutely spot on @noblegiraffe . Thank you so much for pulling all the sources together in such an effective manner.I am an ex primary teacher who left due to all the issues you have identified.
The lack of foresight and understanding should be ringing bells loud and clear with the Government and society in general!