This government still doesn't give a shit about schools or your kids

[noblegiraffe]

I've posted before about this government's catalogue of failure when it comes to our children and schools and unfortunately it's still going on.

Sir Kevan Collins, the government- appointed schools catch-up tsar has just resigned over their complete failure to accept his recommendations and their pitiful offer of a programme worth only one tenth of what he said would be necessary to alleviate the impact of the pandemic on children's education. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558

Holland are spending £2500 per child for their catch-up programme, the US £1600. How much do you think the Tories value our children? It works out at £50 per head, and some of the proposed 1.4 billion is going on teacher training rather than tutoring initiatives so won't have an impact for years.

For the much vaunted national tutoring programme, have the government hired experts to provide this? No, according to Sam Freedman, former education advisor to Michael Gove "The DfE have also ballsed up the procurement of the National Tutoring Programme by scoring quality too low vs price so it's going to be run by a Dutch outsourcing firm called Randstad. They undercut all the orgs who actually understanding tutoring. So a lot of the high quality UK charities and organisations providing support to the tutoring programme will now likely pull out. Proper shitshow."

At the same time they have been cladding new and refurbished schools in Grenfell-style cladding www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/30/dozens-of-new-school-buildings-in-england-have-combustible-insulation, and have rejected calls from fire safety experts to install sprinklers in new school buildings. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558

In January, Johnson unexpectedly announced the cancellation of exams for Y11 and Y13. There was no plan for what would replace them and the buck was passed to Ofqual. By March, Ofqual admitted that they had no idea what to do, and so it fell to teachers and individual schools to set, mark and grade GCSEs and A-levels - tasks normally done by exam boards who are still charging exam entry fees this year for doing what appears to be very little. Scotland is paying teachers £400 each for this extra work, England is, of course, paying nothing. Parents are reportedly already gearing up to appeal teacher assessed grades while the government dodges the blame for the impending fiasco.

As I have posted about before, the government have cut Pupil Premium funding by millions, so in practical terms the most disadvantaged children now receive less per pupil than in previous years when there wasn't a pandemic. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4227538-See-how-much-the-government-has-just-cut-free-school-meal-funding-by-in-your-area

And on top of everything else...GAVIN WILLIAMSON IS STILL ED SEC. It's inexplicable, he is widely regarded as completely useless and yet while others involved in education resign around him, he gets to keep his job.

YABU: This government really cares about education and children

YANBU: This government do not give a shit. Not just incompetence, they really don't care.

I’m not convinced throwing money at problems solves them. Sorry - I know that won’t be a popular view here.

Pretty sure Sir Kevan Collins didn’t simply recommend throwing money at the problem and there were more to his proposals than that.

The govt rejected them anyway.

To be fair annie that isn't actually true.

Holland are spending £2500 per child for their catch-up programme, the US £1600.

School Districts in the United States have until October 2024 to allocate funding from the bill - 'only' 20% of the extra funding must address learning loss;

www.chalkbeat.org/2021/3/12/22328181/schools-stimulus-money-questions

Money for books, resources and staffing is constantly being cut.

Not according to this;

July 2020 -
Schools across England are set to receive a £4.8 billion boost in 2021 compared with 2019.

www.gov.uk/government/news/every-pupil-in-england-to-see-another-rise-in-funding-in-2021

Do you think you could find a non government source, properly costed, for that statement clav?. It has been pulled apart multiple times.

You need money to employ teachers, computers, books etc etc

but since when has a tory govt EVER down anything for the average brit?

I mean they opposed the NHS, universal education, the OU, the minimum wage, tax credits, rent reform... and sold all the council houses off and didn't want to feed the poorest children, until a footballer made them!

If Rashbrook campaigns for extra teaching, that dick head Johnson will run out in front, shouting "I'll teach the kids"

It's horrendous. Agree with everything you say and knew this would be you starting this.

Hopefully they'll be a job for an education secretary soon - fancy the role?!

noblegiraffe I take my hat off to you, I knew this would be your thread before I saw your name.

Yet again the government have screwed over teachers and kids, surprise surprise!! these don't offer value for money to the Eton educated government. They don't give a toss about teachers after all you had a higher than average pay rise last year 🤔. So where does that leave the children you need to educate? I for one will not agree to a longer day or shorter holidays. This is not the issue.

My DC's school have been amazing and I fully support any action they decide to take. As frontline NHS nurse and more importantly a parent to 2 secondary children, you have my full thanks and support for what you have done.

YADNBU

They never do giraffe but I don’t believe additional mental health resources in schools is money well spent. Fundamentally, it’s good teaching that’s needed.

The U.K. just voted this government in and they are on course to win even more seats if they were an election today.

This tells you everything you need to know about the U.K. population.
I mean even America and Biden are spending more for catch up. The U.K. don’t care otherwise they wouldn’t keep voting them in.

Did anyone actually expect them to do better? They've proved time and time again they don’t give a shit.

I teach and the resources are constantly being cut. I don't need to see a spreadsheet or finance plan to evidence it. It's clear day to day. Ancient library books, teachers buying their own glue sticks, overcrowded classrooms.

Does anyone here really think their children learn as well in a class of 30 as they would in a class of 20?

Clav the US link you posted repeatedly says that is is a massive amount of money. It seems in some areas the spend is closer to $6000 per student. It ahs its flaws but whichever way you slice it, it is a massive amount of funding:

It is almost certainly the largest single federal outlay on K-12 education in U.S. history.
It’s nearly eight times what the federal government spends annually on the Title I program.
It’s more than twice what the federal government spends on education in a typical year.
It amounts to about 20% of all K-12 public operating spending in 2018, the most recent year with data available.
The three relief packages together add up to much more federal help than schools got during the Great Recession.

Not sure what you want us to see there.

@Waveafterwaveslowlydrifting

I teach and the resources are constantly being cut. I don't need to see a spreadsheet or finance plan to evidence it. It's clear day to day. Ancient library books, teachers buying their own glue sticks, overcrowded classrooms.

Does anyone here really think their children learn as well in a class of 30 as they would in a class of 20?

The solution would be to make Govt ministers children go to state schools... oh boy would the funding massively increase.

My sister was head of SENs until she took early retirement, its quite unbelievable how our children are expected to learn.

But a poorly educated population suits them.

They also aren’t being transparent about the spread of Covid in schools

Not to mention removing the requirements for masks yet they are still needed everywhere else in public indoor spaces .....

Gove and Williamson have children in the state sector. Makes it even more unforgivable really.

This twitter thread by Lewis Goodall is worth reading
twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1400154064164372481?s=19

Or to use the govt’s vernacular, this is perhaps the biggest “levelling up” crisis in Britain today and there is a serious risk of a profound levelling down. Collins’ argument is that by spending less now that levelling down will be worse (and more expensive) in the long term.

£50 per kid.
Fucking hell. Don’t spend it all at once.

I don’t want this to get into which year group is screwed the most, but I do feel for the secondary ones coming up to exam years. Next years cohort when life (fingers crossed) is normal and they are expected to just crack on like it never happened. At least early years have a chance to catch up.

As ever the kids with switched on, educated and engaged parents should be ok. It’s the ones that need school to plug that gap that are stuffed.

YANBU - the way schools have responded to Covid has been astonishing - how they managed to pull round over a year of education online and in school - provide support to key worker kids, education for those at home - support for vulnerable kids - on the whole they have really stepped up (I work in schools all over the UK - well I did - I now talk to them online!) - teachers have worked so hard this year - but you are right OP this Government do not give a shit - Tories never did - They got rid of Connexions, Sure Start, Book Start in their first year! it hasn't got any better has it?

receive a £4.8 billion boost in 2021 compared with 2019.

So they’ve pledged funding to be less crap than they have previously funded. SEND funding is appalling.

From the Guardian, based on IFS figures.

^The government has recently committed to increasing spending on schools in England, which the IFS calculates as amounting to £4.3bn extra a year by 2022. It said the extra money will “just about reverse” the 8% cuts in spending per pupil since 2009.^

^Even so, an effective 13-year real-terms freeze will still represent an unprecedented period without growth,” the IFS noted, going back to “at least” the 1970s.^

Article here; www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/19/education-spending-fall-from-2010-to-now-was-worst-since-1970s-ifs

Piggywaspushed
It seems in some areas the spend is closer to $6000 per student.

The average spend per public school pupil is $2,500 (to be spent by 2024) - therefore some areas will receive much less than $2,500 per pupil;
Like the prior relief bills, the money is distributed in a way that closely tracks poverty, which will lead to large differences in what school districts get.

Schools in the US have obviously had trouble reopening;

10. Will this money actually get more school buildings open?
There’s reason for skepticism on this front, even though President Biden has argued that that’s why this money is necessary.

Longer school days seem like a good idea then -

Some strategies that schools are considering, like small-group tutoring or an extended school day, have a track record of success.

I love Lewis Goodall.

He was brilliant covering the care homes scandal.

And he's right about why this matters.

If everyone were equally behind, well, that would be one thing.

But the 'behind' is vastly unequal.

We are choosing - right now - to accept a vastly unequal future for many children.

It's a scandal - and Johnson (& Williamson) should not be allowed to get away with what they are choosing to do.

Whatever way you swing it it's a huge amount of money and puts our government to shame.

From the very same paragraph you juts copy and pasted :

Research, including a new paper reviewing dozens of studies, shows that students tend to make more progress when their schools are better funded