To think that school budgets are going to fail our children

[BakeOffDisasters]

I'm coming from this as a teacher and parent and I'm so worried about how things are going in some schools due to tightening budgets.

I'm facing a day without an LSA in a year 1 class of 30 today with a lot of challenging needs. Across our ks1, three support staff have now been signed off and there aren't enough LSAs in the school to cover. So that will be one LSA for four classes today. This will mean that children with the highest needs will miss out on the support they so desperately need for behaviour, emotional issues and academic needs. Supply agencies are too expensive for some schools so it turns into a skeleton staff.

My son has SEN and I'm currently in the process of looking for a school for him. From questioning management across schools, the message seems uniform that with the cost of living, budgets are tightening and this has a knock on effect to staffing, specifically support staff. All teaching and support staff are the most valuable resource to children in schools, without them, children will suffer.

I feel so disillusioned with it all right now.

I was working in a school the other day where the old nursery building is now the SEN area. It seems that they are moving away from inclusivity, and dealing with individual needs in one area. I only saw a teacher, no TA, in the classes I passed.

I absolutely agree. I'm a primary teacher and my son starts school next year and I'm really worried. The lack of funding is really scary.

I feel the same. I am a T.A in a reception class and am working my last week of notice next week. I am gutted 😢 but I can no longer afford to pay my bills on the wages I get. That, coupled with how challenging our role has become over the years has left me no choice but to find other work. I am going back to factory work. Long hours but I get paid more per hour than I do now without the added stress (I thought last year was hard, this year is almost impossible!). It was interesting to find ex teachers and college staff also at the factory I've applied for, all saying they have left for the same reasons I have. The pressure of working in education at the moment with the budgets the way they are is immense. Many of my current colleagues are at breaking point aswell and they don't think I will be the last to go this year, unfortunately.

Yep, my dd is in y4 and has some mental health issues. It was recommended she speak to a trusted member of staff after lunch each day to check in and manage her anxiety and spiralling thinking, but none spare.

This is exactly why I've sent my youngest, who is in reception to a different school to her older siblings. Both schools are fine but the school she attends gets alot of funding and as a result their resources are very good.

Absolutely agree. There is no money for children with SEN so they lose out and so do the other children. Teachers and support staff who are there feel they are failing as they can't split themselves any further and therefore leave, making the situation worse.

It's going to get a LOT worse too when the higher energy bills bite. Lots of schools are on fixed price contracts that are coming to an end / being cancelled.

Absolutely agree. Teacher and parent here. Schools have been ok at managing so far but people and resources are being stretched to the absolute limit and I think that things that we've been covering up are going become more and more obvious to parents. It's only going to get worse as our pay rise hasn't been funded by the government and has to be paid for out of existing school funds and the heating bills at through the roof. I'm very angry and very tired.

I'm on the end of being a professional who assesses children and puts in recommendations/training etc and know full well when writing a report that the recommendations will never happen because there just isn't the staff. The teacher can be as fantastic as you like - they can't clone themselves. It's a disaster unfolding.

Yes as a teacher & parent I feel very bleak about it.

Each year we are managing bigger and bigger needs with fewer people and a smaller budget. Our current reception & y1 cohorts are massively affected by covid lockdowns etc and the behaviours and needs we’re seeing aren’t going to just disappear.

Breaking point feels ever nearer.

Me too @EchidnaKidney We are also overwhelmed with work and schools and families can't access our service, but we can't afford to recruit more people. Even when we eventually do our assessment I know that little will change as schools either can't afford or can't recruit support staff.

And whilst things are particularly tough in SEN, all children are affected. My own Y9 is without a maths teacher this term, again.

Similar in early years. We have to manage children with challenging needs as part of our usual ratio as little to no money for SEN one to one until EHCP etc in place but they tend to only get finalised at the end of the preschool year. We end up needing to shadow the child with behaviour or SEN issues to the detriment of the learning of the other children. Keeping children in mainstream isn’t always the answer as it doesn’t help them or the other children educationally in many cases. Good specialist provision where their needs can be fully supported without the rest of the class suffering disruption is needed now fewer TA and LSA are available. Or perhaps pay people what they deserve for the challenging role so they are willing to stay. Pay early years funding to cover one to one care. It’s a shame those in charge just don’t see how difficult education is.

Teacher and parent here and I’m looking at ways I can pull my children from their school. In my
school there are NO staff. NO consistent weeks. We have 6 staff off with Covid and another 5 off with general illness. There is no cover. Children are juggled. There are cleaning jobs, TA jobs and two teacher jobs advertised with NO applications. This is a nice school with nice children and parents. We literally cannot manage with the staff we have. The children’s education and even safety are suffering as we are on the absolute bare minimum or even less, daily. What do we do? We haven’t even entered the winter illness season yet. Our youngest cohorts are hugely impacted by Covid and need so much support and we can’t give it.

We’re using a different to school to previous dc and they have a few support staff in each class (I haven’t checked but maybe two or three).

It seems high in comparison I’m not sure what the key difference is - if it is just funding but not sure why it would be more doable.

I'm guessing the additional support staff are 1-1 for individual children.

Unfortunately I don't know of any school who would be able to afford to have more than a single TA / member of support staff in a class, unless they were there for specific children. There's not enough in the budget to cover for support staff in eveery class, let alone multiple staff in each class.

It’s a terrible situation and in my view will be even worse next year.

Schools will have used up any surplus this year and the full impact of energy, inflation etc. has not yet been fully felt.

Govt need to step in and stop fucking about.

It will be worse next year, a few schools had a surplus to just about give them time to make all the necessary cuts for things to balance in year 2 or the 3 of the budget plan. It takes a little while for staff restructures and other savings to show up. But that surplus is gone, the cuts have been made and now energy bills, cleaning contracts, materials and wages have gone up. There are no cuts left to make.

It was already dire for SEN, i now think it will be unsafe.

I think teaching will be whats cheapest not best. Lots of lovely ideas about having more play based learning for longer will get stopped as resourse heavy. No training courses to increase skills etc.

It’s utterly desperate. Parent, ex teacher and now SEN support.

I’m so concerned 😢.

In primary, especially the younger year groups, your adult support really provide the foundations for what we as teachers can deliver as it should be. I actually laughed the other week when I looked at our absence list one day and saw that I was put down as the cover for my LSA who was off. Staff are being spread so thin and it's worrying how much this impacts on the children. I'll try my hardest to get round 30 year 1 children in a lesson but it's not always possible which means some won't have a clue what they're doing and just sir there. It's really awful.

I'm really worried for my own son. He has adhd and I know that he will need a lot of adult support in a class when he starts school. Not just academically and socially but also for his own safety. His impulsiveness leads him to having no idea of risk and danger.

Do any other teachers feel like it's more worrying as a parent as you know what the situation in schools is REALLY like?

• sit there (that should say)

The school ds went to have closed their learning centre for SENpupils due to lack of funding. So now SEN kids don't get the small group & individual teaching they need. My friend's son went to the school on the basis that there was the learning centre for him to do most subjects as he has ASD, ADHD & some developmental delay, school have actually told her to keep him at home until he gets a place at a specialist school for SEN children, he hasn't been to school since July, he is nearly 14. She is tearing her hair out, has involved everyone from CAMHS, the Education Authority, our MP but he is still missing out on his education.

This is not a new thing. The budgets have been failing all the children for years but especially the children with Sen! Not helped by creative accounting when allocating personal b

Block funding as 2 :1 sessions when the reality is that the class TA is available to help if the child asks for help within the normal class environment but because the child is too anxious to ask for help and TA too busy with other children to check, the child is massively unsupported academically which in turn affects their mental health and self esteem.

Secondary Core subject teacher here.

Our school has done away with supply altogether - if someone is off and it can't get covered by staff internally, then classes are thrown together into groups of 60 and lectured in the hall. This will be out of sync with their normal lessons (because no two classes are ever entirely at the same point), is disruptive as hell because they're teens and behave as such and makes effective teaching impossible.

We have a week later in the year where a few staff are out on training. We have already been told NO ONE will be allowed time off for anything pre-planned that week, inlcuding funerals. Have a parent die? Tough shit. Have an operation scheduled? Re-schedule.

TAs, while we have a few, are non-existent in most classes, despite us having a higher than average SEND intake and I have a fair few students with EHCPs who have no extra support beyond what I can do for them in a class of 30.

We are taking on extra students from surrounding schools - those who have been excluded multiple times - and stuff them into already full and challenging classes because we are that desperate for money.

Any requests we have to actually make teaching possible (like, you know, books for A-level classes which have gone from 4 to 14 in the space of 2 years) don't tend to get signed off for ages, we have to beg for basic resources.

Our school, despite all of that, is heading for bankruptcy - not that the shiny new head office in central London, which has recently been completely refurbed on public money, give a shit.

It’s absolutely dire. Parents need to wake up and smell the coffee. I am often quite vocal in the school moaning threads because parents are still so naive to a typical school day.

I refuse to use my own money on classroom resources, this means that sometimes children are sharing pens to write with. We have no classroom support and no meal time assistants.

Thankfully however there is still plenty of money for Ofsted to come in and do ‘inspections’ and for the ridiculous phonics screening tests and KS1 and 2 Sats to go ahead. Thank the Lord for that!

Luckily for me my own child is now in the private sector.