Teacher strikes - are your kids missing out?

[noblegiraffe]

A new report from the Sutton Trust has showed the the number of headteachers being forced to make cuts to children's education provision because of school funding issues has risen sharply since last year.

Schools are being forced to cut support for SEN and vulnerable pupils, IT equipment (or plans to buy or upgrade IT equipment) , school trips, extra curricular activities and school support staff, on top of cuts that were made last year. All of these will affect your children's education.

41% of headteachers reported using pupil premium money, which is intended to support disadvantaged pupils, for general school costs meaning disadvantaged children are missing out.

In addition, 71% of headteachers reported difficulties in recruiting teachers, 26% to a great extent (this generally means not being able to recruit at all and having to rely on supply teachers). The lack of teachers will impact children's education. It already is.

The government response was to have a webinar with headteachers yesterday telling them that, according to their calculations, school funding was fine. Headteachers asked them questions like 'what happens if my school goes bankrupt?'.

The Sutton Trust calls on the government to urgently review school funding (which includes funding for teacher and support staff pay rises) in the light of these findings.

https://www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion/all-news-opinion/cost-of-living-crisis-hits-school-spending/

Teachers from all four teaching and head teaching unions recently overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer of 4.5% for next year, where only 0.5% was to be funded by new money from the government, the rest to come from school budgets. The government is now refusing to negotiate and the strikes continue.

In terms of missing out on school trips - my DC's school recently polled parents about the cost of a trip - prices seem to have gone through the roof for things like coaches. Parents were saying that they couldn't afford it, and so the trip that was previously enjoyed by many years of pupils won't happen.

Really depressing.

I love the Sutton Trust. They do so much to close the gaps for disadvantaged children. The government are absolutely incompetent.

It’s scary. I have recently gone back to working in schools after 10 years out caring for DS. The impact of the cuts is notable and schools can’t do anywhere near to everything they should be.

schools are trying to do their best with ever decreasing budgets being stretched to breaking point

In order to pay for the last pay rise, we had to make our only floating LSA redundant. She was amazing and did all of our interventions across the school-social skills, fine motor skills, speech and language, emotional regulation and general SEMH support. All that support is gone overnight and all of those children are now missing out.

Kids are missing out on proper subject teachers at my school, and a reduced subject offer at GCSE and A-level.

They're also missing out on teacher attention due to increased class sizes.

At my primart school we have fewer TAs and almost all the ones we have are linked to 1 to 1 children. Some children who really needed a 1 to 1 have to share a TA, even when their needs are very different. We have also not@iced a big increase in children with learning, behaviour and medical issues as well as children who don't speak much English; with fewer TAs this causes disruption to classes as the class teacher is desperately trying to juggle too many things. This on top of larger class sizes means everyone is missing out.

noblegiraffe
Teachers from all four teaching and head teaching unions recently overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer of 4.5% for next year, where only 0.5% was to be funded by new money from the government, the rest to come from school budgets.

The government would argue that it has provided new money though:

In [the Autumn statement - 17 Nov 2022] we announced that in 2023-24, schools will get an extra £2 billion of revenue funding and the same again in 2024-25.
This is on top of the £1.5 billion increase schools were already set to receive in 2023-24, bringing the overall funding increase this year to £3.5 billion, compared to 2022-23.
https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/04/26/school-funding-everything-you-need-to-know/

Teacher strikes: Everything you need to know about the teacher pay offer.
https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/

Yeah they might argue that but it would be utter toss, like most of what they say.

Yes, and the government are fuckwits who have been widely derided for this assertion and have actually spurred the other three unions into rejecting the offer as well as the NEU, and all four are now balloting for further strike action.

Not a roaring success, is it?

Feel like my kids have missed so much. One missed most of reception and one most of year 7 because of covid.

Then the eldest hasn't had 'proper' teachers because the school can't recruit any and therefore isn't being taught some
Subjects and just given worksheets.

Now it's strikes and her year 'isn't priority' so shuts for every strike to make sure those closer exams get taught.

noblegiraffe
the NEU

This NEU?? (I thought you posted on another thread that teaching unions were not political?) -
Teachers strikes are about "taking back control from a brutally racist state", the new hard-Left National Education Union (NEU) leader has said.
Daniel Kebede takes over as general secretary of Britain's largest education union later this year, replacing the current leaders Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney.
... in a panel discussion at the Socialist Workers Party's Marxism conference last July, Mr Kebede said the industrial action was "more than just about winning on the issue of pay"
"It's about reorganising society where we are free from racism, and free from oppression."
The comments will raise eyebrows, given teachers and their union chiefs have been adamant that there their strikes are about cash.

He has also accused ministers of "removing socialist ideas from the classroom."

Last month, The Telegraph also revealed that Lucy Preston, a figurehead of the teachers’ strike who was featured in multiple media outlets discussing the hardship of being a teacher, had posed in a classroom with an "only good Tory is a dead Tory" placard on her Instagram account.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/27/hard-left-teaching-union-behaving-like-children-get-ready-shut/

I worry so much for my kids that I’ve given up my full time job as an estate agent (done for 22 years) to work as a FT kitchen assistant, plus evening and weekend cleaning job (weekend are because of the boarders) at a private school so I can send my children there, as i’ll get 50% off the fees.

Budgets are that stripped now that it’s support staff who are making the cut.

Given they are mostly on minimum wage it’s a very sad time for education as they are worth their weight and wage in gold.

More and more SEND , a massive cut of any services such as CAHMS and now no support staff in schools.

Our children are being so royally screwed over by this government it’s a disgrace.

noblegiraffe
41% of headteachers reported...
In addition, 71% of headteachers...
Today’s polling of 1,428 teachers and senior leaders, part of our yearly teacher polling series conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER)

Out of interest, do you know how many headteachers answered the survey? To quote 1,428 teachers and senior leaders is a bit misleading if only 50?? headteachers make up the panel;

• Our panel includes teachers from the full range of roles in primary and secondary schools, from headteachers to newly qualified class teachers.
• The coverage of teachers by role in schools is comparable with population of teachers in England by phase of education.

The gall of anyone trying to defend this shitshow, particularly when they have no skin in the game.

Then the eldest hasn't had 'proper' teachers because the school can't recruit any and therefore isn't being taught some
Subjects and just given worksheets

This is exactly why teachers are striking. Supporting teachers in taking this action would be far more helpful: write to your mp.

I think the definition of "gall" must pretty much be attempting to defend the utterly indefensible.

Regarding children with EHCPs detailing 1:1 teaching assistants and these sometimes being shared between two students: try sharing between four, when they are supposed to have one each. It is virtually impossible to recruit teaching assistants (and we couldn't fit four in the classrooms with 32/33 children and one teacher as well, anyway: there is literally no floor space for three extra pairs of feet!)

The funding is like the EY funding which has been shown to be bollocks and purposefully not fully funded following a FOI that has taken years.

https://www.eyalliance.org.uk/freedom-information-investigation-findings

At my school we’ve cut trips, will not be fully staffed in Science and Maths next year and all budgets are massively slashed.

We’re a secondary who now asks for uniform donations to provide for the huge amount of parents that cannot afford it.

We have 3/4 times the requests we usually have for loaning devices at home for students.

Wr have classes of up to 35 students. We cannot recruit enough TAs to meet our basic needs, let alone support in these huge classes.

students get less teacher time. They get less quality feedback. Those with SEN are less likely to have their needs met. Those without are often overlooked as we try to meet the needs of our huge classes. It’s horrific.

My daughter is on her 3rd French teacher so far this year at secondary school. Where my husband teaches, they cannot retain new teachers. They get the job and then quit because the demands are too great at his school (leafy suburb but workload demands of the academy). Where I teach, in a primary of 10 classes, we have lost so many teachers over the last few years. Last year, 2 teachers in their 2nd year quit at the end of her first year. The year before, another quit. None of these have stayed in teaching. This year, someone in her 3rd year quit at Christmas. Then you have the other, more experienced teachers that leave. 3 left last summer.
Funding might have gone up, but not by anywhere near enough. None of the covid costs were funded. The amount of SEND is through the roof. The academies agenda means that the schools need more funding than they did when locally maintained to pay for all the academy chain staff. Before our school became an academy, we had at least 1 TA in every class. Children with EHCPs also had 1 to 1 or went to the enhanced resource unit, where there were 5 TAs for around 10 children, plus a teacher. Now, the enhanced resource unit has been closed, children with EHCPs are lucky to even have a TA in their class, let alone 1to1.

My husband and I are both teachers. In Scotland they have agreed a pay rise which would see those who have been teaching over 9 years on nearly £60000 a year. That is nearly £15000 more than in England. I used to spend loads of money on kids in my class, and I just can’t afford to do so now. My own children deserve for their parents to earn enough money to make up for all the hours we work, both in term time (60 hours a week) and in our unpaid holidays.

Academies have created a lot of problems, also the government in specific and societal ways. I’m an excellent teacher (OFSTED), top grade exam marker etc and I love teaching. I’m also an ex teacher. It was destroying me. I felt like I was going to die with stress. Most teachers are very earnest, love teaching and give much more than they should for not enough money. That’s why they end up walking away.
I now run my own tuition business and earn more money than in teaching for half the hours of work. I will never return.