Funding may not be the issue in schools?

[damnedifyoudodammedifyoudont]

I know lots of threads already exist on VAT, and this isn't another; putting aside that, does anyone think more money into education (beyond recovering the real terms cut in budgets / covering pensions) isn't the issue?
My (?) unpopular opinion is that teacher burnout and money not stretching have more to do with people's expectations of the service, not the budget.

People have gone from expecting an essential service to education to requiring it to cover parenting, pastoral care, and more. While I see value in some of this, where does parenting stop and school start?

When free education was developed, schools didn't need entire departments dedicated to mental health and pastoral care.

How can we continue to pay for these things and keep the fundamentals going?
I'm not saying we shouldn't have these services, but where does it stop?

This can be applied to the NHS and possibly other government services too.

What do others think?

funding is not the only issue, but it is the main one. My child goes to a wealthy state school in the United States.

We have a team of counseling staff with one person assigned to about each 150 students. These people follow your child for their entire time at the school and take care of pastoral needs. If there is a problem with my child that is not directly classroom related, I contact the counselor, not the teacher. The counselor who is not busy all day with a classroom full of children.

we have a full-time nurse that covers all medical issues.

Based upon the number of 1:1 aids we see in the classrooms, they are not an incredibly scarce resource.

Talking to other special needs parents, none have ever mentioned the school trying to make the child’s day shorter or to exclude the child from an outing. The school makes sure there is adequate staff.

all of this takes money.

I think that properly funding special schools and PRUs will solve a lot of issues in comprehensives and primaries.

If the children who can’t cope with mainstream are educated in more appropriate settings then this would not only benefit the child in question but also the classmates whose education is disrupted.

It shouldn’t be the norm for staff or kids to be physically attacked or to have to be in the same class as a pupil who has attacked them on multiple occasions. It’s not fair on anyone.

Schools have their hands tied when it comes to suspensions and expulsions and the inability to use these sanctions because OFSTED etc makes consequences for things like forgetting to bring a green pen to class, completely pointless and petty.

I completely understand why staff would rather work retail which isn’t an easy job when behaviour is at an all time low because of bureaucracy.

There are still plenty of areas where more funding would help, and even if you re-directed some funding from areas you happen to consider 'unnecessary' ,there still wouldn't be enough.

Schools near me have no textbooks, have to photocopy endless worksheets at half size to save paper and ink, ask for donations of soap for the toilets, can't afford to rebuild or fix any of the issues with the buildings or toilets, get the children to bring in their own whiteboard pens and erasers as they can't afford it, and thousands of other issues, as many people have pointed out. Funding would make a huge difference to that.

Funding teachers properly to get enough of them to stay to reduce the workload to manageable levels would also make a huge difference, and to be able to afford the staff needed to properly address SEN to allow those children to be supported fully as well.

I think that the expectations placed on schools has changed too. They are expected to be social services, CAMHS, medical and parental as well as education.

For example when there’s a case of child neglect, kids having possible special needs or a report that says kids leave school without a life skill (say having more credit card debt than their annual salary) then some people assume that school bears some fault for not flagging and rectifying things. The National Curriculum is designed by politicians and teacher training doesn’t include material taught to police, social workers, mental health specialists, educational psychologists… who are also responsible for child welfare. Cutting those services inevitably affects schools as well as children.

Yep and they tend to exacerbate each other.

People have gone from expecting an essential service to education to requiring it to cover parenting, pastoral care, and more. While I see value in some of this, where does parenting stop and school start?

I can’t see any government reversing this though. Nobody in power is going to tell parents not to send their child to reception if they aren’t potty trained or they can’t use a knife/fork.