It wasn’t funded! (DfE liars!)

[MrsMurphyIWish]

Am so sick of reading this: A Department for Education spokesperson said: "The offer was funded, including major new investment of over half a billion pounds, and helps tackle issues teachers are facing like workload."

0.5% was to be funded only, rest would be out of current budgets which my school is already running at a deficit. We currently are using portaloos as our toilet system doesn’t work! Our head couldn’t possibly afford to pay staff and fix our building.

A “task force” would help with work load. We don’t need another (over paid) committee to tell us what we already know - we already have so many rehashed strategies about “working smarter, not harder” under corporate speak titles. Not one strategy can put right Ofsted toxicity, dealing with suicidal pupils, dealing with starving pupils - this is what affects teacher mental health. We take the burden of other’s mental health.

Anyway, AIBU to wish the media would actually write the truth and challenge the government on their double speak?

workload is the thing to double down on.

Agree. It went bonkers again about 6 years ago.

According to this data

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics

Funding of schools (inflation adjusted, per pupil) had been broadly level but recent increases has put it above the level when Labour left power in 2010.

If the schools are starved of funding now, at least the current government is moving in the right direction.

Hang on...it's a good thing that education funding has been so dreadful and so eroded since 2010 that it is now eventually raised to basically the same level it was THIRTEEN years ago??

That's proper straw clutching.

We’ve no hot water in our school due to a finally collapsed decrepit boiler so that may help balance our energy budget this year. We also have a collapsing playground so that’s been taped off.

We manage our SEND well so word gets around and we probably now have 50% of SEND in each class. Yet support staff are being cut as in a small primary school we just can’t make anymore cuts. We probably have half the amount of support staff we had ten years ago.

Im glad my own dc are almost finished in the education system it’s beyond broken any parent who has children currently in this system needs to be screaming from the rooftops , like the teachers are doing. If you think it’s all about payrises it’s gone so far beyond that you wouldn’t believe.

recent increases has put it above the level when Labour left power in 2010.

Nope, you’re looking at planned future increases not current levels of funding,

@noblegiraffe , this year, funding per child is about 4.5% higher in inflation adjusted terms than 2010. Next year is forecast to be even higher.

In 2011 , there were 8.1 million school aged children, in 2022 there were 9 million, so we are educating far more children for less money!

Sorry, In 2010 there were 8.1 million.

@TreadLight do you think schools have enough funding? If funding is fine why are schools having to scrimp in the ways detailed on this thread?

There are now 390,109 pupils and students with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), an increase of 10 per cent on 2019 and 62 per cent on 2015.

neu.org.uk/funding/send-crisis

It's chasing rising costs. Small fry but Photocopy Paper is x3 the cost of what it was.

It's nowhere near enough

And that’s the ones with an EHCP so many more children who need one but haven’t due to not enough funds to prioritise them.

Funding per pupil in the UK is about £7k. Day fees at top public schools are around £23k. So for a top class education with full extra curriculum activities, we need around three times as much per pupil.

The problem is, when you ask how this should be funded, the cry goes out "tax the rich". But when they do that, the virtuous rich like the consultants find they are being taxed out of the work place and the NHS collapses.

Inflation adjusted but not costs-to-schools adjusted.

The government says it won’t return to 2010 per pupil funding levels till 2024/25.

It's interesting people are saying that all countries are complaining about funding in education. Education on the continent has been well funded for the most part. It is inflation that's stinging them and recruitment issues as private companies are offering more and public services never keep up as quickly. The issue in the UK is that we're having that problem PLUS the many years of frozen or reduced funding. Everyone is struggling, but the situation in the UK is in the pits.

Things like not funding FSM adequately really don’t help either. Lots of schools are propping this up to the tune of tens of thousands each year-if they didn’t have to do that, they could fully fund another teacher.

Does that £7k correspond to KS2 pupils and above who don’t qualify for FSM and no SEND needs?

And that’s the ones with an EHCP so many more children who need one but haven’t due to not enough funds to prioritise them.

Oh yes. I know of many parents really having to fight for their child's needs.

No, the average in a primary school in England is £4400. In some counties, the figure will be £3.something k.

@HubertTheGoat that’s what I thought