Tories to continue to run schools into the ground

[noblegiraffe]

School funding was a massive issue in the 2017 election, and some say that it lost the Tories their majority. Not seen much about it on MN recently, so it seems to either have fallen off people’s radar or people have believed the Tories when they say the promised increase in funding will sort everything.

According to the latest analysis by the NEU union “Only 18 out of 533 parliamentary constituencies will not see per-pupil funding drop in real terms in 2020 compared with 2015”

Curiously, 13 out of these 18 lucky constituencies are Conservative areas.

If you don’t trust the union data, the Institute for Fiscal studies says “after inflation is taken into account, schools will only be getting an extra £4.3 billion per year in real terms by 2022-23.”
... while the funding is enough to almost reverse the real-terms cuts in schools budgets since 2009-10, there has still been a 13-year real-terms freeze on schools' budgets, which is “an unprecedented period without growth”.”

In addition, there have been announcements like raising NQT pay to £30k. While I’m sure this will be welcomed, if this increased pay sucks up all the extra funding, then we still won’t have any money for teaching assistants, textbooks and glue sticks. Schools also have to pay more national insurance and pension contributions than 2010, so a return to 2010 levels of funding will automatically mean doing more with less.

www.tes.com/news/4-out-5-constituencies-face-school-funding-cuts
www.tes.com/news/government-funding-vow-13-year-real-terms-freeze

I’d normally post this in Education but AIBU seems to be hosting the Jeremy Corbyn thread and I do really want people to know that the crisis in schools will not be fixed by the Conservatives, no matter what they’re claiming.

Interesting. Do people not care about school funding any more? Over three quarters of teachers surveyed thought it was an issue in their school.

And isn’t a gradual return to 2010 levels of spending the Conservatives admitting they were wrong these past 9 years? All the stories about how schools need to cut down on photocopying and other ‘waste’, and the DfE bleating on about how well paid teachers are, and now they’re saying that actually, it turns out that schools did need that money? That teachers do need to be paid more?

It’s like the recent interview with Matt Hancock when he was trying to trumpet the extra 20,000 police officers who would be hired and Susanna Reid pointing out that didn’t even make up the 21,000 who had lost their jobs.

Are we supposed to be impressed?

You're right, the conservatives do not care about education. Nor do they care about the NHS or public services like the police service.

The pledges they have made essentially all backtrack on everything they have caused to happen over the last 9 years. If they had any intention of improving these services they would have done so over the last 9 years.

However, the people who believe them will never be convinced by anyone that they are wrong to believe.

Given how massively popular the school funding cuts threads were in 2017 and how this one is just full of tumbleweeds, I can only conclude that the Tories are headed for a large majority.

I think the people who care have given up all hope and the ones that don't - don't.

I will never, not ever, vote Tory after what they have done to education/NHS/social care/emergency services etc. The fact that working people have to resort to food banks is beyond shocking.

Making the rich richer leads to more money in tax havens. Making the poor poorer means there is less money being spent. Poorer people spend their money (they have to). That boosts the economy and increases tax revenues. Rich people squirrel it away which does nothing for anybody but themselves, their banks and their accountants!

I really care. My DD is autistic and due to their cuts is stuck in some kind of no mans land. Too difficult for mainstream to deal with as no funding but no places in the whole of Birmingham for a more specialist provision. An absolute disgrace.
I have never ever voted for the Tories and shame on anyone who votes for them.

You are not being unreasonable. Our school is over £200,000 in debt. I don’t even know how that is possible. They are losing so many staff. But I’m told this is now normal for schools. Is it?

Absolutely definitely not unreasonable. I will never ever vote Tory, and agree with a pp that if they’d wanted to prioritise education they would have done it in the 10 years they’ve been in power. I work in education and all I’ve seen is cuts left right and centre. I’ve just had the budget for the department I run cut by 60%. TAs have quit as the pay works out as less than NMW due to unpaid breaks and lunches, and they’re not being replaced as the budget isn’t there.
It’s a shitty election bribe and I don’t believe them for a second.

Yanbu. So sad that people are voting them into power - they do not know what it’s like to be human.

But I’m told this is now normal for schools. Is it?

To be £200,000 in a cumulative deficit isn't usual? Is it in year?
To have had to make significant cuts to maintain a balanced budget is normal.

We're having to dip into the reserves this year to pay for SEND support. No chance of getting EHCPs for children who need them - they seem to refuse every application as a matter of course in our county and only properly look at those who appeal.

We can't afford to pay for supply teachers, so teachers can't attend CPD training unless one of the TAs is willing to cover a class (which is rare - they're amazing support in the classroom but not confident enough to lead).

Basic repairs in school are getting done but all the classrooms and communal areas are desperate for a repaint, and have been for years. We can go on whistling for that. It looks awful though and that puts parents off, which means not a full Reception class, which means less money, which means peeling, dirty and damp walls...

From the BBC:

1. School funding

Mr Johnson said his government was "lifting up" schools funding.

The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says the government's three-year spending plan would reverse school funding cuts, returning funding to 2009 levels. And this would amount to a "13-year real-terms freeze" by 2022.

The government has previously claimed it would invest an extra £14bn in schools, which makes it sound more generous than it is in fact being.

The number comprises:

£2.6bn in 2020-21
£4.8bn in 2021-22
£7.1bn in 2022-23

When you add all three together, you get £14.5bn - but that's not normally how we talk about spending increases.

We talk about budgets for each individual year, so usual practice is to pick a year (normally the last, with the biggest increase) and use that to measure the generosity of pledges.

www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-politics-50317404?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR1bBAPjOWZrlWdsSMIwM3ijoRGkZIKDs_kXsUyTaJs4Rb5qtxIyJKSzHYk

I’m always baffled that education isn’t a bigger issue in elections but especially now. I care much more about what’s happened to schools in the last decade than about whether or not we stay in the EU. There are pros and cons to the EU but there are no pros to massive sized classes, portacabin classrooms, teachers begging parents to pay for basic supplies, no money for much needed TAs, criminalising parents who take term time holiday (when the study the Govt quotes actually proved that children with preplanned term time hols do better academically), teachers bogged down in admin / testing targets etc etc. I will never again vote Tory because of what they’ve done to education.

I agree Skysblue. It's not a focus at all in this election. Everything seems to be about Brexit or the NHS. There are so so many things we could list that have fallen apart under the Tories. Education is the biggest one that affects us too - and must affect more people perhaps than the NHS, I don't know.

Not everyone uses hospitals/doctors very often. I do. But many people don't. Parents/families/grandparents are taking their kids to schools like Physalia describes every day and it is depressing and deeply worrying. I think Education should become a bigger focus in this election.

I've worked in secondary schools for 15 years. The situation now is dire, particularly for children with special needs. We cannot give them the support they would have had in the past ,because staff that leave are not being replaced.
We are failing these children. Some of them will have to leave mainstream education because they need more support than we can give them. Many will have a much harder time and much worse outcomes than they should have.
What are we worth as a society if we don't look after the most vulnerable amongst us?

But if they leave mainstream there is nowhere for these children to go. My DD has SEN. Her SEN are not severe enough for her to be offered a place in a SEN school (if there were any available - which there aren't!).

The only place for her is mainstream. These children will have to stay where they are with no support and that will end up causing ALL children a problem. Because when SEN children have no support the teacher is the only one left to deal with the fallout. There will be no teaching happening.

All of our children will suffer as a result of overall lack of funding AND Sen cuts.

I heard that some schools can't afford essentials like cleaners and that other members of staff are now being asked to fulfill that role!

Whoever pushed/encouraged schools to apply to become academies (Gove, I think?) needs to take a lot of the blame too. I work in a school who converted, fairly recently, to an academy and I'm absolutely shocked at the state of our finances now.

Brexit is the distraction which has got the tories off the hook for the last 10 years economic mismanagement. People are fixated with Brexit and will vote for them whatever their past record in government. Do they care about the effects of austerity, homelessness epidemic, struggling schools, nhs, prisons, police- no, it’s just fingers in ears and get Brexit done, we want to leave, get us out yada yada yada.
The town I live in was screwed by austerity but I suspect people here will just vote for more of it because of their obsession with Brexit at any cost

But if they leave mainstream there is nowhere for these children to go.

The number of home-educated pupils has doubled in the last four years, no doubt in a large part due to the massive underfunding of SEN provision.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/02/04/number-home-schooled-children-doubles-four-yearschildrens-commissioner/

I know there are lots of schools that are now relying on parental contributions to make up the shortfall in funding. That’s how the Tories roll, expecting private individuals to pick up the slack. It’s the same with foodbanks.

But schools in disadvantaged areas don’t have that luxury.

Thank god this thread got some replies, btw, has restored my faith in humanity (not you, Tory biscuit girl. I can only assume you don’t have DC in state education).

Yes, I have at times (when things have been bad at school/no support etc) considered Home Education. I suppose that's also what the Tories want. That's also a kind of private education. It saves the government money doesn't it?

I'm not against HE - but in our situation don't think it's ideal. SEN kids feel different enough - why should they be separated even more and set aside from the rest of society. And that's not even mentioning the cost of HE and one parent not working. And for that very reason HE will also be impossible for some.

"I’m always baffled that education isn’t a bigger issue in elections but especially now"

It's weird. A family member of mine who was a teacher was absolutely devastated by the direction education was heading in under the coalition, used to come home in tears. They still voted Conservative in 2015 because... honestly, I don't know, something something Ed Miliband lacking gravitas something something.

I’m a senior leader in primary and the situation is dire as PP have said. We cannot afford basic equipment and have not replaced TAs who have left. We have a TA in Reception class but no other general TAs in the rest of the school. Our other TAs are for 1:1 children with EHCPs. When a child has been awarded 1:1 within an EHCP a general TA has been reallocated for them instead of a new one employed. Children with lower level special needs get no support other than what the class teachers can provide. We have junior classes of 32-35 children. The situation is not good for the children with SEND and it is not good for their peers in many cases. The lack of funding for SEND is the single most worrying thing to me. It is a constant pressure and stress.

We get very little pupil premium funding so are existing on basic per pupil funding only. Our teachers regularly buy resources for science etc with their own money or those lessons simply cannot happen. Senior leaders tell them not to but cannot find the money in the budget and the teachers care so do spent their own money.