To ask Headteachers and SLTs is it really that bad?

[Paris2023]

Press since the start of term and now more recently has focussed on schools running out of money. Perhaps having to shorten days to cover outgoings. With more recent news of further austerity and I believe limited funding what do current HTs and members of SLTs think?

what is the solution if more money isn’t available? A lot of money is being swallowed by higher energy bills.

I taught primary in a deprived area through the Thatcher years, and so much of this seems horribly familiar.
From teachers buying resources to buildings that leak and are unsafe, to classes being split for the first day of any absence. First time I submitted a receipt for goods, I felt incredibly guilty.
No TAs back then, or PPA time, or photocopying, scavenging from scrap banks and charity shops to resource your classroom. Keeping bread and jam in class for hungry children.
It’s a matter of despair that things haven’t continued to improve.

Thanks @noblegiraffe vert useful to have them in one place.

Do you really mean volunteering as a TA? Or as a parent helper? Would you be willing to provide 1:1 care for a child with SEN who is potentially challenging or has personal care needs? Would you be prepared to look after a child with health issues who needs help managing these?

Or, would you be prepared to plan and run intervention for various groups? Or supervise the whole class whilst the teacher runs intervention? Or support various children with possible SEN that hasn't been diagnosed yet, so the teacher can give whole class input?

I guarantee if you approach your child's school and offer to volunteer, they will bite your hand off. If you are genuinely willing to do a TA type role for free, then the school will likely support you to do this! In general, you wouldn't be taking a job from anyone, right now- as has been said on this thread, there are many students in schools who need TAs, but don't have one.

A lot of PTA events are a real hassle causing extra work for parents. Sometimes it's just easier to ask each family to donate money and not have to do anything else in the process. My old state secondary school used to ask parents for money at the start of each academic year to go into the pot.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl , I was thinking more on the line of academic support to those that need extra help.

I thought SEN support would be something for which proper training would be necessary.

Maybe I should be more proactive and approach different schools. I have a recent enhanced DBS and experience as a reading helper, but I’m quite insecure and always think I might not be good enough.

School funding cannot be based on charging parents voluntary contributions because schools in well-off areas will win, and those in disadvantaged areas just lose over and over again.

Many schools, especially those built under such initiatives as PFI and Building Schools for the Future (BSF) don’t own the building, so can’t actually hire any of it out- the school in effect has to rent the building from the PFI company. They get so many hours a week and so many “extra hours “ allowed for parents evenings and so forth. The PFI (or whichever) company often hires out the building at other times, but that money doesn’t go to the school.
The company also “top slices” a percentage of whatever budget the school gets as “rent”. They also charge the school (a lot) for certain damages and for things like putting up extra display boards (I know one school who was charged £500 just for the company to put up a meter square notice board that the school had bought - the school were not allowed to do it themselves or hire someone cheaper.)
I know of a special school who’s standard staff costs took 92% of their funding - this is as expected due to their higher staff to pupil ratio- including TAs, medical and therapy staff. The PFI company demands 10% of their delegated budget… so they were 2% in deficit before they payed for equipment, heating cleaning etc. They had to make several teachers, TAs and admin assistants redundant and cut down on nursing hours to make ends almost meet. Class sizes went up by 50% and inspite of the serious special needs of the pupils (think wheelchair users, epilepsy, autism, children who need feeding, children who can become distressed and violent) there was only one TA between two or three classes. This was pre Covid. Things are even worse now.

I guarantee that if you contact schools, many will be happy to have you! In many schools, parent volunteers also do things like run the library etc, if you'd be interested in doing something like that.

There will almost definitely be something you can offer that will be useful to the school!

We have lots of unqualified teachers, classes covered by TAs and there are not enough staff to cover what’s needed now- so teachers and TAs are covering lunches instead of having their own lunch. No money for anything really. It’s also very hard to recruit teachers. Can’t imagine why.
I’d love to stop funding things out of my own pocket but telling us to stop spending on school stuff is a bit victim blam-ey! It’s miserable enough - don’t deny me my glue sticks.
No support for SEN at all either. Behaviour is appalling too - no one to help with that either. Plus the parents need more support, the children need MH support. It’s all spiralling.

Renting out the site is so much harder than it seems. Security for the rest of the site? What about any children in wraparound? They have to be safe. You can’t just let people have access to the building. Lighting, heating, someone to open, close, clean.
Something has to give.

Are your schools still buying in speech therapists and Ed Psychs etc?

“Rather than per pupil funding it’s saying a per school funding as a solution but how? You could have a school with 20-25 kids per class getting the same funding as those with 30 kids“
This happens now anyway. Different parts of the country get different amounts of money per pupil. Often quite large differences. The funding has an historical basis which doesn’t seem logical to many people.
www.statista.com/statistics/381745/education-expenditure-per-pupil-england-region-uk/

Governor. Yes it's very bad. It's not just energy or a recent thing, it's staff of sick, unable to recruit TAs as well. So much is in a fine balance

With all due respect, £2K is probably not enough to cover the cost of an NQT salary plus on-costs for a month. It's a drop in a very dry ocean.

And the risk assessments involving children and toasters....

Our new head has advertised for a new PA position. parents were a bit perplexed. I dunno I suppose if the monies available??

I'm a governor of a primary school. The last few years have seen our finances improve due to growing pupil numbers (to nearly PAN in every year) and the minimum funding guarantee. Some of the things that other schools are losing were previously only a dream for us. In my time with the school, there's never been a TA in each class or year.

The biggest issue at the moment is TA recruitment. Our TAs are primarily 1:1, with some capacity used for small group interventions. When we can't recruit TAs, the ones we have are spread even thinner.

The other issue is high levels of SEND. We are proudly an inclusive school, but I can see why, financially, some other schools don't make an effort to be welcoming to all families.

Im reading this thread in horrified fascination.
I genuinely believed that class sizes were topped at 30 in law, hence so much angst around appeals etc. Is that not the case, can schools be forced to have class sizes of 35 or even 40?

In England, class size is capped at 30 only until the end of year 2. Class sizes are consistently much higher than that in ks2 and secondary. We have more children than chairs in many of our lessons and it's a good things TAs are leaving in their droves, because no one can get down the gaps between tables to support children anyway.

Reception classes are topped out at 30.

if there is no money to pay teachers, what are schools going to do?

@Givenuptotally that is the question most schools are asking

if there is no money to pay teachers, what are schools going to do?

In primary, they are getting much lower paid TAs to teach classes instead.

In secondary, cut courses, increase class sizes.

This has already been happening.

@juggleit Most heads do have a PA. Usually the role will include other non PA duties but having someone deal with the "admin" so the head can actually be a head makes much more financial sense than the alternative.

I’m a primary HT - it is bad to the point I don’t know how we will cope but know there are other schools worse off as we had saved some money for building work which we will now use to get us through this year and next. After that I haven’t a clue.
The demands in schools are increasing with no increase in capacity. It is going to break but sadly it will be the people in school who break first.
Im finding expectations from parents are increasing and we are honestly trying our best but don’t have the resources or support from beyond school. I am not a mental health nurse, doctor or housing officer. I really do want the best for the children in our care - but we are now expected to be the answer for everything. If the number of staff reduce, as they will have to, those left will be stretched to breaking. The media and politicians telling parents we are lazy and if not happy phone Ofsted etc are not helping. In the last two years when trying to recruit - I’ve really struggled. I can’t get middays for love or money so I do that too. It’s not sustainable.
Ramble over - apologies for typos - I’m on my phone.
The bottom line is our children deserve more but school staff have no more to give and a lack of funds will just exacerbate the situation.

You think the school has money to burn because the headteacher has a PA? That person will cover multiple areas of responsibility in the office: from experience the HT PA usually also provides admin support to the rest of SLT, office management, absence and cover co-ordination, HR admin and sometimes reprographics.

I think money being ring fenced also causes misinformation. In the summer we had money left in our sporting grant which we can usually carry forward. We were told we couldn’t - and if not spent by 31/8 - it would be clawed back. We bought equipment with it. For those looking in - they must question why we bought that if we have no money.

Our Head’s PA does so much! She has an important HR function, does the website and newsletter and parent communications as well as all the meeting minutes, diary coordination, admin for SLT. She’s genuinely needed. I don’t think in any other sector the idea that the Head of an organisation would be able to do without a PA would even be mooted.

The pastoral support in our school has been cut to the bare bones, which is my biggest worry at the moment. It keeps me awake at night. It’s an absolute needs must, though, or we’ll have to start cutting teaching staff.