School budget cuts- is this normal?

[SummerDuck]

So a letter has come out from DS’s school titled “Plans for the next academic year”. Basically due to teacher pay rises, inflation and government funding freeze, there will need to be changes in how the school operates.

The school are proposing 20 teacher redundancies with the drama and French departments closing. There will be a “reset” of catering provision with reduced staffing and a heat from frozen offer.

School trips are being “paused” while most office staff will go, with teachers picking up some of these tasks. Is this the norm bod for state schools?

This used to be a ‘bloody hell, can you believe the special school are saying the need is too high for them to meet, so we have to keep them in mainstream’ moment, but now this happens routinely-I’ve had 3 consults just in the last month all saying this.

@Shinyandnew1 I also think this is because many state special schools are struggling to recruit. There's a lot more aggressive, difficult to deal with SEN kids. This is very often because they've not had needs met for a long time and it's too late for special school. I don't know what we're meant to do with them.

Absolutely-we are finding recruitment for SEMH needs in mainstream virtually impossible. Who wants to be bitten, kicked and scratched all day for minimum
wage?

The EPs in our area are so depleted that they are only doing statutory work and there is absolutely no capacity for anything that might be considered ‘early intervention’ in schools, which doesn’t help. We have lost 5 EPs in our LA just this year. They were all sick to the back teeth of just doing statutory assessments.

Oh yes. This is happening all the time. Children who are a danger to themselves, teachers and children who we have no option but to keep in school.

@Shinyandnew1 Yup, exactly. It's quite scary and I'm worried for a lot of these kids. The anger is scary and parents have no clue. I'd be scared to approach some with a sedative, let alone 'reasonable force'.

No option but to keep in school and hear from the LA that they don't need an EHCP or that the £7k on their EHCP should be enough for the 2:1 adult to child ratio they expect you to give the child.

The ONLY way I could get a child into a special school was to permanently exclude him. We had tried everything else, EHCP in place, play therapy, completely off timetable, basically just playing or doing what he wanted ( he was 6), intervention placement in a specialist provision for 16 weeks, Ed psych, behaviour support ( who came in once and refused to come in again to support as he was too dangerous). A specialist provision was agreed by the LA and we were still waiting 9 months later. In the meantime he strangled two members of staff, broke another one's nose, gave one a black eye, trashed the classroom on a regular basis, climbed the fences, wrecked the furniture. But apparently there was no place for him and we had to cope. Until he was permanently excluded and lo and behold a place was found for him.

I have another who has been " home schooled" since summer as there are no places available and at a recent transition review parents were tod they had to agree to home school or mainstream education whilst waiting for a specialist place to be found as there were no places available, the child is year 6, working at yr 1 level with Down's syndrome and the mental age of a reception child.

No one needs to do French…it was hated when I was at school 40 odd years ago, can’t remember a word of it and never used it once, same for German…not needed in todays day and age.

Such ignorance. What do you mean 'in this day and age'? I'm struggling to think of occasions when what I learned in history, chemistry, physics, biology or the vast majority of my maths lessons has been of any practical use to me. Shall we ditch all of those too? Education is supposed to create a reasonably rounded person.

@spanieleyes I think you've also illustrated here now many admin hoops schools have to jump through before they can permanently exclude a child with an EHCP. I am glad there's things in place to protect them, but it's not fair on the school, kids, teachers and as you've also pointed out, the family. Who very often have wanted a special school from the beginning.

This.

I'm sorry but that really shouldn't have taken as much as that before they were excluded purely because of the multiple failures of safeguarding going on there.

That just reads like a lack of bravery to just let bite the bullet.

Of course staff are going to quit if they aren't safeguarded too.

And if all that was going on, I find it seriously hard to believe that other kids weren't at risk or hadn't actually been harmed.

In 'sucking it up' everyone gets harmed more - it's really not a valid reason NOT to exclude.

If you can't show that you have put all that support in place and tried everything, then the exclusion can be overturned.

and everything else I mentioned? You have no comment on that?

Sad for those children who have sod all in life that you are happy for that to continue for them. Powered egg? Is that what you want for your children?

Exactly this. It's wrong on so many levels but that is where we are these days. We've just got Alternative Provision for a child who assaulted his TA on his y6 taster day. He's in y9 now.

And I bet if he had moved to an appropriate setting in Y6 he would be a child on track to get qualifications. I highly doubt that's the case now.

@RedToothBrush you clearly have no idea how difficult it is to exclude a child with an EHCP. It's not as simple as biting the bullet. What that poster described is not uncommon. Sometimes the laws that are there to protect the most vulnerable actually play against them.

Indeed. He's not been in a classroom for two years because he can't be kept safe and neither can anyone else. The system has failed him.

It really isn’t as easy as all that to exclude a child.

Maybe so but given what has happened to my son this year, I'd have been screaming blue murder and going legal on the school and the staff have every reason to as well. The fact they aren't shows how conditioned they've been to accept violence in the classroom. Which is depressing and I'd argue unlawful in its own right - it's just not being tested in courts. Yet.

My suspicion is that it probably will do before too long.

The fact they aren't shows how conditioned they've been to accept violence in the classroom.

Not just conditioned, I've heard primary teachers told that they should expect violence in the classroom.

We have a local school with a very similar child, attacked staff on a daily basis, similar support put in place, similar outcomes. The school excluded and the decision was overturned because the local authority advised that " not everything had been tried" to ensure they remained in mainstream- they recommended that the school should try Lego therapy-hard when all the child did was throw it at the TA trying to support them! Returned back into school, a further 12 weeks of attempting Lego therapy and miraculously specialist ( private) provision was found. The Head of the specialist school said the child was the worst - in terms of need and behaviour- that they had ever seen.

If schools don't try absolutely everything possible, the decision can and will be overturned. Our authority is bringing in a "no exclusion" policy next year , heaven help us.

@lifeissweet saying central funding has to happen is fine if the country could afford it truth is we can't after COVID. If we fund schools to a level they should be, that money has to come from somewhere and the only option right now is increasing tax. You then have to question why childless couples or those who have already raised kids should be funding it in a COL crisis if you go across the board. We have a budget as a country and I honestly think we need a referendum on how it is spent, instead of central government making all the decisions. Many people can only afford one child due to the costs of raising them properly, the only people I know who have had more than 1 are on significantly above average incomes with household incomes of 150k+.

DS went to a state nursery that had a school fund for extras like weekly swimming, new equipment etc I imagine some didn't pay but the majority did and the kids directly benefited from that doing things the state funding wouldn't cover.

He's now in the church system and the majority of parents are debating between the local outstanding comp, outstanding faith school or going private (local private got beat by the comp on results hence the debate). Faith school gets outstanding results but has been attacked by OFSTED.

People move house to the area whilst kids are in primary to get into the comp, as it's cheaper to add it to the mortgage than pay school fees. They then sell and downsize/move out once in the school or after sixth form. Just checked our primary school 1.2% eligibility for free schools meals in the last 6 years and the local comp is even at 2.37% this is in an old mining area not the financial district before anyone comments.

The current block on asking parents isn't helping the situation it's only punishing kids when parents could and would help. Our school get a donation off the church (which is in turn donated by parents) plus PTA fund raising and I'm glad they do. Personally I would happily pay to benefit DS's education. We could go private, but I would prefer he went to a mix gender school which isn't available near us.

What you do about schools in deprived areas is another question that's more difficult to answer, but we need to start somewhere and I think schools being honest is a good place to start. Let parents know the situation and go from there, hiding it is only making the situation worse than it needs to be.

Two TAs at our school are taking either early retirement or reducing days because of exactly this.

My son and his best friend were at serious risk and we made a massive fuss to get them separated from a certain child. Now child only beats the shit out of the other special needs kid who can't verbalise what's going on.

We kicked up a fuss to HELP the head step things up. She DID elevate it to social services to the horror of said parents who are still in denial and resistant.

I know stuff is still going with this other child cos DS tells me but not enough so I can raise it further.

I think he will there will be a serious incident by yr6. Our priority was making sure it doesn't involve our child.

I think it's appalling but parents in this situation very much part of the problem.

Parents of the other vulnerable boy are concerned but can't do anything as it stands. Cos their lad isn't telling them what's happening fully.

I'm seeing bits of it - clear bullying and stood up for him this week as it goes... But it's awful to witness from any position.

I couldn't in good conscience work in that environment on a day to day basis expected to turn a blind eye.

Exactly. I could afford to contribute the sums asked by my kids’ schools, but on principle I don’t. The more we prop up essential spending through parent donations, the bigger the gap between schools in affluent areas and those in deprived areas becomes. I pay my taxes and I’d happily pay a few percent more to fund schools fully and fairly.

The current block on asking parents isn't helping the situation

There isn't a current block on asking parents for money, quite a few schools ask parents to set up direct debits to the school. It just shouldn't be seen as a solution to the government adequately funding schools because essentially you are creating part-private schooling but on the sly.