Government says parents shouldn't be worried about school funding

[noblegiraffe]

Gillian Keegan, current Education Secretary (you might not know this as there have been a few recently) was just interviewed by Sophy Ridge and said that parents shouldn't be worried about school funding.

School funding has been below 2010 per pupil levels for 13 years now. This has resulted in redundancies of TAs, support staff and teachers. It has resulted in subject choices being cut at GCSE and A-level. It has resulted in the school estate crumbling to the point where some school buildings are officially at 'imminent' risk of collapse, and there have been injuries to children and school staff where ceilings have fallen in.

Headteachers had to make further cuts last summer due to a late-announced unfunded teacher pay rise for September.

There is a shortage of TAs as schools can't hire due to being unable to afford competitive pay levels and TAs are choosing to work in supermarkets instead of schools.

There is a shortage of exam invigilators, again partly due to uncompetitive pay, and the government has been forced to relax ratios to allow exams to go ahead.

There is a shortage of teachers and now this year and next there is a devastating shortage of people training to be teachers, for various reasons including workload and lack of flexible working, but also uncompetitive pay.

Schools are also having to prop up the gaps left by the collapse of local services such as CAMHS and SEN support services who are now largely inaccessible.

We had a pandemic which adversely affected the education of children, and yet school funding levels remain below that of 2010.

How can parents possibly not be concerned about school funding?

List of things you might want to email your MP about in relation to schools. You can mix and match stuff that you're concerned about or just use the links to back up your own worries.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4777266-the-government-is-banking-on-parents-not-caring-about-children-or-education

Ask and ye shall receive, it seems. @toomuchlaundry @BustopherPonsonbyJones

Thanks, @MNHQ!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_live_events/4811568-got-a-question-for-the-secretary-of-state-for-education-gillian-keegan-mp

@noblegiraffe Ah, I missed this! I will watch the recording of the Q&A session.

School funding is an absolute disgrace right now. I’m horrified when I hear the budgets that they have to deal with.

@Freespiritwannabe

I'm shocked with your school staffing!

I work in a 2 class per year Primary (apx 420 children).

I don't know about Reception, as they are separate to the rest of the school, but the rest of the school has 5 full-time TAs to cover 6 year groups. 1 TA covers 2 classes of 30 children. One year group has no TA, so cover is provided on a rota.

We do have some HLTAs, but they either teach classes or work with specialist groups.

We have a small team of five 1-2-1s for children who have diagnosed SEND.

Was talking to a friend, the local school to her called a meeting the other day and announced that they were making all TAs that weren't working with EHCP children redundant

@toomuchlaundry Jesus that’s terrible

This will be more and more common. And we can't recruit new ones because people don't want to do it

We've had 2 years of redundancies. It's awful.

Ironically they've had to make redundancies but tas have walked away from job offers so they'll have to recruit for an ehcp that needs covering.

I don't blame them. Paid like shit and expected to work to a ridiculous degree.

@roundtable other issue is that EHCP doesn't usually cover many hours, so trying to find someone to do a few hours for very little pay is going to be even harder, especially if you haven't got any other TAs on site