To wonder why mn aren't bothered by the school budget cuts.

[minifingerz]

Posted on chat asking if parents are concerned about the coming cuts to school budgets, and how much their child's school is losing (or whether it will be one of the few to gain).

My dc's school is losing about 1K per child. Class sizes increasing significantly, school dinners will increase in cost, support staff being sacked right, left and centre. Some schools will have to get rid of almost all their TA's.

The cuts are really radical and coming at a time of big change in regard to GCSE's. I'm really concerned about it and I wonder why other people are not.

BTW I agree that schools outside of big cities have been historically underfunded. Just don't agree with robbing Peter to pay Paul. Surely the answer is to increase the overall budget for schools so that all schools have what they need to provide a good education for children?

Whatever you're political leaning, there are county council elections coming up in May to show how you feel.
I think engaging with your MP is a good first step. I'd love to see what Labour would do & more importantly how they'd fund it. When you're polling at 25% though, you could promise anything you like because, you'd never have to back it up as they won't get in for at least 10 years.
Whilst education is understandably the most important issue to some, I don't think that is essentially everyone's view.
Very interesting topic op & sine brilliant points made by other posters

The real issue is not the reallocation of funding via the funding formula, but the way central government are using schools budgets to top up their funding. Schools are facing a 10% drop in funding due to having to pay increased employer national insurance contributions, the apprenticeship levy and more money to local authorities to make up for the £60 put pupil cut in the ESG grant. Schools are facing the worst budget cuts since the 1970s and it's only just beginning.

Ha ha ha of course all families can afford £50 a month per child. Then we all returned to the real world where families such as mine are on low incomes and fsm and the reality of £50 per month per child actually being used for essential bills like heating and water

You don't think gasp this is away to privatise acadamise schools do you?!

Academies are in the shit too.

Does anybody know where I can find the data which shows how much of the cuts (on a school
By school basis) are due to the new funding formula and how much is due to the budget not keeping up with real term Inflation and increases to NI/ pensions etc?

Greenginger - who said they 'wouldn't miss the money going out of their accounts'? My household has the equivalent income of two nurses. Does that make us 'champagne socialists'?

"How can the school be losing £1k p/pupil - what was the amount per pupil to begin with?"

Somewhere between 4K and 7k I believe.

I am in a county which is historically underfunded

Me too. I would like to see a fairer funding model. I am glad changes are coming but as my son is in year 9, they will be too late for him. That said, I think the overall pot is going to be smaller so it may well be that his school doesn't get any more £££ anyway.

I would pay more tax for education.

Surrey has been talking about council tax rises but those are for social care, not education.

I feel so frustrated that this hideous Tory govt is yet again ruining our public services but the Labour party is virtually dead and providing very little real opposition

This.

Surrey as a county is losing 38 mill

Sixisthemagicnumber - this is the government's own consultation document, where you can look up what will supposedly be the effect on each school
consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula2/supporting_documents/Impact%20of%20the%20proposed%20schools%20NFF_20161220.xlsm

Thanks rusty. I will have a look on the laptop later as it won't open on my phone for some reason.

I have just looked at the school I work at, primary, on the weblink from further up the thread. It looks like we are the only school in the county not getting a cut. Why would this be? Can anyone explain the new formulae? We have a higher than average % of SEN but the ks2 SATs have been below floor for 5 years, although should be getting better from next year.

It was no good on my iPad either, and pretty clunky on the pc, actually.

Sixisthemagicnumber- I don't think there is nationally available data. In my school we will be 10% down in our budget by funding not keeping up with national insurance/apprenticeship levy/ inflation and 0.5% down due to the new funding formula. The 10% will be across all schools. Funding formula changes vary and can be different for neighbouring schools.

It's a political decision to reduce school budgets. It's a political decision to hand over schools to academy chains that somehow manage to pay enormous salaries to friends of the government. It's a political decision to keep changing the curriculum so teachers leave the profession ,and it's a political decision to cut corporation tax to benefit the millionaire friends of the government. And to sell off all the remaining public assets to unaccountable corporations, run either by foreign oligarchs and/or billionaire friends of the government. This country is being systematically asset-stripped, and your children are collateral damage. Making sure that people question which schools are better off, whether we can 'afford' to educate immigrant children, blame teaching unions, etc etc are just carefully constructed distractions.

Well said missy

Cricket balls, if you are not replacing teachers then who is teaching their classes?

I agree it is not fair to take from schools that don't have enough funding to give to schools that have no funding either. I had assumed until now that the funds would be re-allocated from good performing schools with plenty of budget, but this thread has proved me wrong.

My local MP (Tory - West Midlands) has been campaigning for a change in the funding formula for a long time an remains positive on his website as the local area is gaining funding. I don't know what the national average is but I was in class sizes of 30-32 all the way through until college. You say OP that class sizes are increasing significantly, but from what to what?

atheistmantis colleagues who were employed as cover supervisors (we are an academy) 'teach' KS3 then we have timetable changes to try and cover KS4 by a qualified teacher. This isn't always the case though as some yr11 groups are being taught by unqualified (non core subjects but still GCSE groups)

I've heard of classes being amalgamated and taught by a single teacher in the hall, also classes being timetabled into a computer room to sit on mymaths while being supervised by a cover supervisor.
Also while a teacher may not be 'replaced' in terms of hiring another maths teacher, that doesn't mean that the class won't have an adult in front of them, just that that adult won't be a maths teacher, and possibly not even a qualified teacher.

This last few posts about unqualified teachers is interesting. I mooch around a bit on private vs state school threads and one of the criticisms always thrown out about private schools is that some use unqualified teachers as they don't have to meet the same regulations as state schools. I have no problems with unqualified teachers as long as the people doing the tracking have sufficient experience, skills and knowledge to teach the subject effectively but from the previous few posts it seems that is not the case.
How on earth are schools getting away with using Assistants to watch over a class doing my maths? I can understand it as a one off due to staff sickness etc but it should never be the norm.

user1471597558 - good schools already receive less funding than lower performing schools within a local authority, due to the way funding is allocated within a local authority. The better you do the less money you get.
Sixisthemagicnumber - academies don't have to use qualified teachers. Local authorities are telling schools they too will need to consider increasing class sizes/using staff who are't qualified teachers to avoid going into deficit.

How on earth are schools getting away with using Assistants to watch over a class doing my maths?

Do you think schools want to do this and are turning down qualified maths teachers in favour of this option?

They're doing this because they have no choice. Anyone complaining would be asked if they know of any maths teachers who could do the job instead.

My county is losing £75 million in total. My school is set to lose 2 teachers - we only have 3. That means either the school will shut or that 70 children will be taught by 1 teacher. Reception to year 6 in one classroom together. I wouldn't want to teach that amount nor would I want any child of mine to attend a school with such a huge class.

not sure where you are in Midlands but Solihull and Birmingham are both losing.