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.

Well that the Tories for you, no-one should be surprised by this, given their track record.

Tories are rich people’s party.
They don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves.
Thay can afford private education( so fuck up public schools), private medical care ( let sell NHS and line pockets of the cronies even further).
Nobody mentioned that Brexit is an escape from revealing their squirrelled funds in tax heavens? A new law comes into force in EU in January, that’s why they are desperate for Brexit before then.

The Tories don’t give a shit about education because they breed their successors in private schools. Why fund the poor when you can nurture the rich? Baffles me that people are still surprised by this.

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.

Absolutely, but trying to get poor people to believe it is difficult because too often they've drunk the Tory Kool Aid.

I rarely have a pound spare at the end of the month. I have always oppposed austerity, not because it affects me, but its effect on the economy.

I could never vote Tory, not even in a single party state where voting was compulsory and the penalty for not voting was death by being bored to death by Grease Smug talking about how much cleverer he is than poor people like me.

Education should never have been treated like a business and that’s what academy’s have done.
Im just a parent who volunteers in my dcs school and I too can see that the SEN kids are been failed. My dcs are lucky in ks2 there is a TA per class but we are in a deprived area and have several kids per class with some sort of SEN or behavioural issues, so TAs are often dealing with those groups.

I do care about the funding problem, do think schools need to be much better funded and am not voting Tory.

However I don’t think any amount of money for schools will ever be enough while we ignore the exponential rise in SEN. While we ignore that there has been an exponential rise in SEN and instead claim there has just been an increase in diagnosis.

This is absolutely not true. The rise in SEN is clear but nobody in govt will ask why.

Therefore I don’t think any amount of money will be enough to solve the crisis.

Bluegingerale: I agree with you about the rise in SEN. I don’t think think it’s just caused by the closure of special schools and more kids being diagnosed. People just used to think of SEN as being Down’s Syndrome, hearing problems, cerebral palsy, with things like dyslexia being the more minor things. The kids with behavioural issues or mental health problems were far less present in schools and were more hidden in “borstals” or mental health units.

Many specialised units have closed now as they are too costly so yes, that is one reason for the rise of kids with SEN in mainstream. In the past those children had adequate support. These days they are often left to flounder without any support.

I think the real cause of behavioural issues in schools is our wider society. Social and emotional and mental health issues are not necessarily caused by an SEN, but often SENCOs and TAs end up having to deal with this kids who have extreme anxiety or depression to the point of being suicidal. Because the teachers are all too busy doing the actual teaching and there is such minimal funding for dedicated pastoral staff for these kids that they end up being looked after by support staff who have no training or qualifications in dealing with suicidal children. Office staff, library staff etc.

Waiting lists for specialist counselling services are huge. Kids are getting onto the fact that they’ll be fast tracked if they try to take their own life. It’s tragic.

What is causing this huge increase in the number of kids with anxiety and depression in our society? Those problems don’t just manifest as withdrawal. These are kids whose anxiety comes out as violence and angry outbursts. Depression comes out as self-harm by scratching their arm or hand with a compass in view of the teacher till blood is drawn. Poor teachers. Poor kids.

What is going on? WHY do our young people have such severe emotional issues?

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

Not many teachers vote Conservative, to be fair. Schools have been very sombre places the day after General Elections in the last decade.

@CurlyhairedAssassin those staff don’t exist at my primary. The class teachers are the only ones available to deal with children with SEND who don’t have an EHCP.

And if anyone is reading this and thinking ‘oh well MY child doesn’t have SEN so.....’. THINK AGAIN. Every single child in the class is impacted negatively when children with SEND are not adequately supported. Every single one of them.

It’s not just the tories- education in Scotland under the SNP is also dire.

I know Scotland has issues with the Curriculum for Excellence, are its schools so severely underfunded as they are in England?
Is there are critical shortage of teachers?

(I don’t know the answers to those questions)

I wouldnt vote for them no. But i seriously doubt any of them care. It seems now is the time for billy bullshit promises that i doubt will ever be delivered, as the above highlights.

Very disillusioned by all the parties and sceptical how much any care, unless it affects them.

@Lookingsparkly, I was talking more about secondary really, I suppose. There are a LOT of extra issues in schools with 1200 teenagers as opposed to 360 under 12s. I would hope drug abuse is a minimal issue at primary school for example. Issues over sexuality which manifest as violence or self-harm. Just general hormones add a lot to the mix.

I know primaries are also struggling with lack of TA support and mental health support and to be honest I don’t know how primary teachers do it without that help. Maybe if primaries had more help with SEN and pastoral stuff, actually, by the time we see them in secondary behaviour would be easier to deal with? For a while at least.

There has definitely been a decline in the behaviour of new year 7s year on year at my school. We don’t blame the poor teaching or behaviour management of the primary teachers as most of us are also parents and realise the situation is nearly as bad at primary in terms funding cuts, not just to schools themselves but wider support services in society.

Every single child in the class is impacted negatively when children with SEND are not adequately supported. Every single one of them.

And this is the issue. years back, these kids were supported. Had TAs to advocate for them. Now, they are just left to flounder. If other kids take the piss out of them or rowdy behaviour of others sends them into a melt down it’s often not noticed by staff until it’s too late and problem has arisen or got out of hand. By that time, the class teacher has a difficult job getting everyone back on track and settled again. It’s really unsettling and upsetting for everyone. Snd valuable teaching time has been lost.

I doubt any MP has serious issues with getting good care and education for their child with SEN or SEMH issues. They can pull strings. or home school easily enough.

I don’t think the Tories have a CLUE about what real life is like for the man and woman and child on the street.

We’ve has 9 years of harsh cuts and the deficit has actually increased under the Tories ... and don’t get me started on the clusterf@ck that is Brexit. Please think long and hard if you’re a traditional Tory voter - it’s not the party it once was. The moderates are all leaving. Please think long and hard before voting on 12 Dec. Not sure how our services could cope with 5 more years of the current government

It’s not just the kids who are stressed.

“Seen exclusively by the Observer, the charity’s teacher wellbeing index indicates that stress levels among teachers and school leaders have ratcheted up for the third consecutive year to the highest levels ever. Nearly three-quarters of teachers and 84% of school leaders now describe themselves as “stressed”, and more than a third of education professionals have experienced a mental health issue in the past academic year.”

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/10/stressed-teachers-at-breaking-point-says-report

Regarding SEN I think it's largely dependent on where.you live regarding the provision. In my Town , which admittedly is a very large town there are two SEN primary schools ,Two SEN high schools , and Two primary autism hubs, and two secondary autism hubs it probably still isn't enough but it's a lot better than a lot of places

It’s the children in mainstream without support that are the issue. The special provision in my LA is very good.

And there is also a primary and secondary PRU.

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.

THIS!!!! I was saying this to my son just the other day.

Also agree that Brexit has become the key issue for too many people and they forget the deliberate underfunding of education, the NHS, police perpetrated by the Tories over the past ten years. Shame on anyone who votes Conservative tbh.

I can’t bring myself to vote for Corbyn and I don’t personally find the presence of TAs helpful, the opposite a lot of the time.

Are you a child with SEN in a state school Hollyivywillow?

I’m just wondering how you qualify not finding the presence of TAs to be helpful?

I’m pretty sure research backs me up on this one, dusty!

More TAs aren’t the answer. SEN is complex and a blanket decision (employ more TAs) isn’t helpful.