Where is the state education going to end with all the cuts ?

[user1495443009]

What's going to happen with the state education in the UK with all the funding cuts.?

A teacher friend told me her school already reduced one hour on Fridays to save money. Another friend said her son have his sport club stopped due to funding; hi is secondary school.

It is very sad this country is going backwards.

In my experience the main issue with budgets relates to the teacher shortage which means staff costs are far higher (we have been forced to use a lot of supply; pay for teachers from overseas; and tolerate expensive job sharing/ part time working)

That said, the money has always been available (from the LEA, albeit indirectly) there is no alternative but to pay it. Schools have to operate.

I suspect, less dramatically, what will happen is the government will be forced into a period of huge investment as labour did in the late nineties, when they're finally voted back in

A lot of schools are rubbish at high level budgeting and need proper support and impartial financial and management advice.

Sadly going down the academy route will not result in them getting it.

The lack of transparency and accountability in stand alone and chain academies will be deemed an utter scandal in a couple of years.

Our printing and photocopying has been cut back to such an extent that I have to get children to copy out their homework into their jotters (great use of lesson time!), although I am looking into online options. I also get them to handwrite any notes home, although I use this as a lesson in presentation and handwriting.

No worksheets or individual copies so all my reading groups have to read their work off the screen (hope my projector doesn't break down this year!). Not very helpful for children who find this hard or if they are off and need to catch up.

That's pathetic Jenny. I would be really angry about that.

All very well banging on about how the funding formula won't see schools lose out, it still doesn't mean they are adequately funded, especially at sixth form, where funding continues to be cut.

My school has made redundancies, cut subjects from the timetable, can't afford GCSE maths textbooks, slashed our photocopying budget, increased class sizes, stopped giving the kids a homework planner...things aren't great.

Our printing and photocopying has been cut back to such an extent that I have to get children to copy out their homework into their jotters (great use of lesson time!), although I am looking into online options. I also get them to handwrite any notes home, although I use this as a lesson in presentation and handwriting.

OMG, you should have looked into the online options a long time ago! No wonder the Gvt thinks schools are run inefficiently - in many cases they are! And haven't you heard of email?

At my DCs primary everyone still takes in cheques for small amounts of money to pay for trips etc. It's pathetic.

No wonder the Gvt thinks schools are run inefficiently - in many cases they are!

Indeed. DS school introduced an online homework system a few years ago, yet they still provide the a5 homework diaries! So paying for two different systems! Some teachers still don't put homework on the online system and still hand out paper work sheets instead of putting them on the online system! They also have an online "VLE" system which is like tumbleweed - it's clear a lot of effort was put into it years ago, but now it's completely out of date and only the occasional new item is ever added - another expensive/valuable resource completely under-used.

You can lead a horse to water.....

Same with exercise books. When I was at school, if you filled your book a few weeks before the end of the school year, they gave you loose-leaf paper. At DS school, they happily hand out brand new exercise books right to the last day of term, then give out new books on the first day back, even for the same subject for the same teacher. In English they hand out two - a neat book and a rough book - neither are remotely even half full by the end of the year, especially seeing as they encourage the pupils to do essays etc on the computer so it's not as if they need two books so one can be handed on whilst working in the other. Just a lot of outdated practices - they're still doing things the old way "we've always done it that way" and not changing their ways as new developments and ways of working come in.

But kazzy
with academies all on stand alone, they are no longer sharing ideas and resources
best practice will not be spread unless there are people paid to implement it
and for an academy school, every penny pinched from elsewhere can go into SLT salaries (schools do not need executive heads with six deputies)

with academies all on stand alone

Aren't they all being encouraged to join forces as part of a Multi Academy Trust these days?

My DC2's primary is a CE VA school so should be getting "best practice" from the LA and diocese. But they're really inefficient too so it's not going to happen.

My DC1's secondary is a free school, part of a MAT, and does everything much more efficiently. The SLT work bloody hard and earn every penny (but in any case are paid in line with national terms and conditions).

That's not to say money isn't tight - it is, and there are far more NQTs than anyone would like as result, not least because half of them are snapped up by the private sector at the end of their training each year - but money would be much tighter if the school wasn't being efficient.

It's part of a not well concealed plan to privatise all education provision (and land) through the Academies programme
(as are the curriculum changes and testing regime)

I do agree with this sadly.

This country is going backwards. All the things that made it a great country in my opinion are dissapearing.

holdingonjust
shock OMG, you should have looked into the online options a long time ago!

Every online system that we have ever used has been slated and refused to be used by groups of parents.

Whether its online homework systems, school comms, through to parent pay.

there is always a parent that will want to do it the old fashioned way.

There is always a parent that will want to do it the old fashioned way

Of course there is but you've just got to crack on. Sometimes it's about the implementation. Our primary introduced online payments for the first time last year, but disincentivise people from using it by adding the payment commission on top. If they just absorbed that by slightly increasing prices or, even better, charged an equivalent commission for the administrative costs of handling hundreds of small cheques in envelopes, people would switch pdq.

Our secondary do everything online, and use some of their pp funding to help families get online if necessary. MS office is provided free to students. Registers are marked online, there's an online reporting system for sick leave. Even the school diary can be auto-merged with your own online diary.

In contrast the primary raised thousands through the PTA for new laptops but never uses them because they have such poor support in place, and so little systems knowledge on the staff, that they can't do anything with them.

holdingonjust

Yes, we do all that. but there are still people who bring in cash or cheques, use poor connections as an excuse to get their children out of detentions.

this has been going on since we implemented the online systems.
It won't stop anytime soon.

and there are also technophobes outside of schools, parents without emails, or net connections, so it isn't just schools.

And just as an anecdotal piece there are the parents that won't sign their children up to the cashless catering.

As a parent I hate online homework.

As for The "cuts" are a correction to over-spending in the past and won't last forever

Hahahaha. And why was there "over spending"? Because of previous under spending.

Massive cuts followed by the need to increase spending because of under investment is incredibly short term and damaging.

It's ideological madness.

I'll add - hating online homework is nothing about being a technophobe.

It's because the online systems/websites are pants. Like something from the 1990s. And actually I'd rather my child used a pen and paper because it is better for their memory and understanding.

The "cuts" are a correction to over-spending

I also remember hearing that the mps pay RISE was a "correction". Funny how it goes one way from them (up) and another for the masses (down). Except for SLT who've been laughing all the way to the bank.

If state Schools are overspending with budget share per pupil of around £6000 a year
then surely there should be a clampdown on the gross overspending by private schools, some of whom spend £20,000

There is so much waste in the state sector. It is only right that cuts are made in order to make good use of taxpayers' money.

Bizzy
There is also tons of waste in the private sector

Starving schools of cash will not lead to improvements
it will just nadger the economic future of the country

but sadly those who set policies are more clueless than most

There is waste in the state sector but that's because the government does ridiculous things like pay a graduate £30k to train as a physics teacher, then expect them to take a huge pay cut to actually be at teacher. £30k with no obligation to teach at the end. £25k for maths.

At the other end we have experienced teachers leaving in droves because they cannot put up with the working conditions any longer and schools can't hire qualified maths/physics teachers to replace them. Spending a bit of money on improving pay and conditions to improve retention would save an awful lot of money on bursaries, job adverts, get into teaching campaigns and so on.

BizzyFizzy
There is so much waste in the state sector.

Could you give us a few examples?

Government interference is leading to crashing inefficiency.

In the NHS its the Lansley reforms.
In Education its still that interfering twerp Gove
In the MOD its the fact that the Navy has more admirals than ships

DH is involved with training teachers.
One of the schemes he works with has failed to fill their allocation of teachers this year because who in their right mind wants to go and work in state schools at the moment.

Ta1kinPeece

I don't disagree wit your list but they are all top end issues.

and although they cause finance problems at school level etc. they arn't examples of bad budgeting at the lower levels.