Schools 3 day a week?

[Sunflowerkeep]

Is this for real or just media again? Is it seriously being considered?

Would love £6 -7,000 per pupil! Would make a big difference.
What we'll be getting this year is £4170, down from £4194 last year.

Who gets £7,000 per pupil?

@FacebookPhotos Around here, pupils have longer days Monday to Thursday, but finish at 12.15pm on Fridays. Most people like it that way

Being held responsible for the progress and assessment for not only my own class of 30+, but a class of 30+ somewhere else in the school would be hideous! Our wifi and IT equipment at school is also so dreadful, I can’t see that it would actually even work.

Agree.

The education bill that's currently going through makes this all to clear.

And they won't be able to cut school days as all schools now have to have 32.5 hours a week over the 39 weeks (well 40 but you get 5 inset days)

The expectation schools will have 32.5 hour weeks isn’t until September 2023. For mainstream schools, although most follow the same rules the 190 days only applies to maintained schools. See the government guidance here.

@FacebookPhotos I'm a governor at DDs primary, we already do Friday PPA, it made a minor difference to the budget as we send TAs home at lunchtime Friday but we already only had enough to cover 1-1, so the HT now works from home 2 days a week (is on call if we need her) so her office doesn't have to be heated which saves money, a small amount but it was enough.

We're considering no hot meals at all, even for those on PP to save money. We're not the only school locally considering this, we also already supply two other schools who don't have kitchens with food.

We hire out our buildings 4 nights a week, but just break even when energy costs are taken into account. We have had a permenant FT teaching position advertised for over a year and can't fill it, so we have two upper KS2 classes with 35 kids in each, yet application numbers are going up every year, we have two Reception classes in September both with 32 in (Council made us take the extra 4 children).

And we're one of the larger primaries in the borough most round us are single or even half form entry, have no idea how they're going to manage.

This!! It's ludicrous academy trusts having "CEOs"! The central team in my academy trust probably earn twice as much as my actual schools staff earns and there are a lot more bodies in our school than the central team!!

I won't even mention the amount spent on ridiculous stuff for example changing our entire email system from google classroom to office outlook and teams (meaning hours spent on IT!)... whole trust training days whereby everyone is given a fancy outsourced lunch... banners and planners and diaries and pens all with the academy logo on... promotional videos made professionally for the trust... every child given a branded trust water bottle instead of bringing their own in.. non-class based senior leaders whilst employing intervention teachers/ppa teachers (but i imagine that might be the first change as a very quick way to save money! Can imagine some members of the senior team being annoyed at actually having to teach for a day or so a week though!).

so the HT now works from home 2 days a week

I’m not sure that’s the way to go. Some would argue that head might be better wearing a coat and hat and be at school every day-to support their staff.

Schools could save huge amounts of money by closing for 6 weeks in the winter to save on heating. In fact why not have the school year Jan - Dec with the 6 weeks hols in Nov - Dec? Then parents could go off on holiday to somewhere warm in the winter.

You're welcome 😉

So if the govt are only funding schools to run effectively 3 days a week, but schools have to open 5 days a week, what will the quality of education on offer be? Certainly far less pastoral support, fewer subjects on offer at GCSE and A-level, fewer clubs, very little SEN support, bigger class sizes, cold classrooms, less access to IT equipment, lower quality food in the canteen and less of it, fewer resources, more copying from the board, fewer school trips, fewer intervention/revision classes.

And we're starting from a very low base for these things anyway, due to over a decade of underfunding.

What a wonderful academic year our children are headed into.

I hope you're being ironic here, I really can't tell.

😂

Funding per pupil for 2021-2022 (average - all pupils)
Northern Ireland £6400
Wales £6600
England £6700
Scotland £7600

Within England there are large regional differences, with the East of England lowest and Inner London highest (at well over £8000)
Funding is about 15% higher in secondaries than in primaries

I am in Worcestershire, primary get £4265, secondary average out at £5500 the figures quoted above aren’t accurate!

That is much higher than I thought-can you link to that data?

I think our Primaries get lower than that @igloohouse

Governor at a LA primary. I’m the link governor for finance so know the dire situation but collectively the Board have challenged the Head on ‘cycling through’ experienced teachers in favour of NQTs to save money. False economy that anyone with half a brain can see isn’t a good solution.

Very sympathetic to the plight of heads and teachers generally. I’d also say my experience is the Head is ‘Head material’ in terms of education knowledge only and has no mind for financials, business planning, contract maintenance etc. which are all necessary evils of the role too. I can therefore see whilst there are issues, some of the benefits of academising. I work in a highly scientific sector. Those who rise to management/exec level have to have breadth of expertise beyond technical knowledge and I feel some heads do not.

However, either way schools are woefully underfunded which will/is impacting quality of education for our young people.

overitall oh God, I would hate that so much but it would certainly save a lot of money. And would massively reduce staff and pupil sickness rates. And also Covid risks. It makes toral sense except that nobody would be happy about it! I really would not want to lose the long summer holiday, it's the best perk ever. Hope nobody in power thinks of it!! 😉

It will never happen. Teachers would have to accept a massive pay cut. Can you see Mike Lynch standing idly by as teachers see their pay packets halved and their own children's education lying in tatters? It would cause a huge widening gap of inequality as private schools would continue to run normally.

@meditrina That's the thing, it just seems like every public service is on its knees and at breaking point. The courts and criminal
Justice as well, I've heard. Everything needs more money ... but where's it going to come from? Maybe a 50% tax rate for super high earners...

@Juil

Not sure if you’re aware £150k+ salaries are already taxed 45% and those on £50-150k it’s 40%.

That’ll fuck up GCSE and A level pupils completely - those are the months when the bulk of content is taught

Or were you planning to change the public examination round as well? (With possible knock on effect to when university terms start)

Well the usual suspects - freeze NHS, defer increase to social care, cut defence are all off the cards right now.

Increase in highest rate tax wouldn’t bring in enough and would piss off the people who are already paying the bulk of income tax. Better a smaller increase across the ordinary rate, if your aim is to actually get more revenue (as opposed to following the ‘go after the rich until their pips squeak’ approach that was taken by the governments in the run up to the late 70s Winter of Discontent, a policy which failed spectacularly)

More info on schools funding, which can be interrogated by constituency

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/school-funding-2022-23-find-constituency-and-school-level-allocations/

The new(ish) funding formula means that variations in funding are much less than they used to be. Which was great for areas which were relatively underfunded, not so good for those who had received the higher levels under the old version.