to be alarmed at school budget cuts

[clayspaniel]

Apparently some schools are going to be badly hit by the new fair funding formula - inner city areas hit hardest. If you put in your postcode it tells you what sort of cuts your school could face, and how this could equate to teachers and TAs jobs. Not encouraging!

(( www.schoolcuts.org.uk/#/ ))

My dcs' school will be getting more. It's predominantly white working class, in a rural town. The village schools in the area are going to suffer - it's not just inner city schools that will lose out.

I was shocked by the disparities in funding when I read about them recently and would support recalculation but not recalculation being used as a cover for cuts, if the NUT are telling the truth and this is what is happening.

Does that not mean some of the already overstretched village schools will close and the urban schools will get more stretched though?

Not to any large degree round here, I don't think - my town has 3 primaries none of which are particularly overcrowded.

Lol your very lucky. I'm in an area with not enough places to go round so children up in neighbouring LEAs.

Yep - we are very conscious of how lucky we are not to have the stress of 'will your child get a place?' etc.

There's a shortage of places in my area, with more housing planned. So a group were invited to put forward a proposal for a primary school to cater for the anticipated demand. And the proposal was rejected. Great. There's a limit as to how many portakabins can be whopped onto the existing schools' playing fields, which is the only solution possible so far.

What a mess!

They are still building houses here too. Last decade they've knocked down schools and built houses.
When DS was born there weren't enough midwives.... doesn't take Einstein to realise that five years after (now) we'll need more school places.

There are so many issues with the way schools are funded- and many rural schools are going to suffer. But it's not just the deprived inner city schools and pupils who are going to suffer. I am always astounded at the way the focus is on deprived inner city areas while completely ignoring the very significant level of rural poverty and the challenges facing these schools (harder to attract/keep staff, need to travel as amenities etc not nearby).

Just checked some local primary schools:
One will lose £316 per pupil - one form intake ( faith school, middle class area)
One will lose £270 per pupil - two form intake ( state school, working class area)
One will lose over £1000 per pupil. ( small village school with combined years).

If we lose village schools surely it won't save all that much money because the savings will be offset by having to provide transport?

The loss on the ones in our area are about £500 per pupil per school (poor urban area, high % Fsm and low levels on starting school for starting school and high lvl of SN).

Yanbu

The problem we have is that we are told that cuts are the answer.

They are not.

They are doing nothing to grow the economy (well done Brexit which in the short to medium term will screw us)

Nothing is being done to address the increase in demand (sorry but it isn't immigration causing this).

Too much money has been thrown at academies with very little accountability. They've got billions and they are private companies so who knows what they do with it.

It
Is
A
Farce

This is why Theresa May threw out the grammar schools idea. To distract people from the real problem ofnot enough money and teachers leaving in their droves.

But, but....if May wants Britain to be great again why doesn't she put in a system that will educate all British children adequately? A tad hypocritical?

May herself is of limited vision and a system which educated all adequately would cost money, which the Tories don't want to take from their rich chums.

If we lose village schools surely it won't save all that much money because the savings will be offset by having to provide transport?

Easy answer to that. You'll be told that parents can pay for it. Oxfordshire was trying to charge parents £600 (I think it was) per child to use the school bus.

They are legally obliged to pay for it if that is the school you've been offered.

I'm surprised that they haven't revised the school transport arrangements for years now. I would half expect them to say that now everyone has cars, transport isn't required.

no cuts here, according to the tool. But that's only because we have been so badly underfunded compared to inner city schools for a long long time. Its about time this was recalculated, to make a fairer system.

The council will only pay for transport for the catchment school, otherwise parents have to pay.

My school is set to lose £70k or 2 teachers. We only have 3! So it seems that one teacher will be teaching 70 children in one class - R to Y6 altogether. Our school this year has already lost thousands after the government pulled the plug on small schools and the 'free school meals' for KS1 crap. Not free when we have to fund it and it comes out of our budget!

At present our funding is so low that we have to share an order of glue sticks as 1/3 of the annual class budget is equal to one box of glue sticks. So we don't have 'more than our fair share'. It will mean class sizes will double...which is scary and means that more and more good teachers will leave.

It might be good to gloat that it has been unfair in the past but these are the generation that are going to be supporting us and running our country in 20/30 years time. If we don't buy into their education big time then we will be the ones that the budget hits in the long run when we are run by children who have had a poor education because class sizes are 50+. It is extremely worrying for the immediate prospects and the long term outlook.

My county looks set to have 1700 teachers go equal to £70 million. Yet the queen can get her house renovated at the expense of educating children in her country. Disgusting.

You don't always get catchment area schools in my borough as the county has too few places and if you don't get it and the school offered is over a certain distance they provide transport.

The funding of schools that has been higher (e.g. London) shouldn't be cut to make it fairer (for a start their staffing costs are higher and the investment in those schools HAS improved results). The funding of other schools should be raised.