school finances situation in your child’s school.

[kafkesque]

Letter received today:

Updating you about school finances
I am sure you will have heard through news and topical radio/television programmes about the crises in school funding and I felt it important to update you about the situation in your child’s school.
Our school is also suffering financially and for a number of reasons. For example, the recent staff pay rises are not centrally funded, meaning we need to find thousands of pounds from this year’s budget. On the horizon, employer’s pension contributions will increase from 14% to 50% by September 2020, resulting in £140,000 to be found (annually) from our school budget. Some centrally funded support for September 2019 is promised, though not from this point onwards.
Schools are now charged for services that used to be free at the point of access. In addition, the needs of our pupils placed at The MSE continue to increase and as such, so do our costs for relevant resources (e.g. reading books, IT equipment and programmes as well as staffing and related training costs.) However, per-pupil funding levels are not keeping pace with the significant extra demands on the school. We know this funding argument is ‘won’ though have no confirmation as to whether any additional finances to support us will actually materialise.
On our doorstep, the cuts to other community services leaves vacuums, for which we find ourselves undertaking crucial pastoral work that would not otherwise be provided for our families.
If only the ‘little extras’ money promised in November’s budget could be for ‘extras’. If we cannot fundraise to meet such additional costs, we will have to make savings in other areas. Fundraising has been very successful at school, but as you can imagine, so many grants, trusts, company and private donors, do not want to spend money on school essentials like staffing, replacing toilets or worn-out flooring.
I am sure you are aware that Teaching Assistants, Teachers, Admin and Leaders at The MSE School regularly undertake unpaid overtime, though you may not be aware that this is often in excess of 30 additional (unpaid) hours per week. This is not just because of the love of the job, but to keep up with the immense demands placed on the school.
I do hope you that won’t find this pessimistic but I wanted to update you about the current situation as I do know you take a keen interest in your child’s education. We remain optimistic - the school continues to innovate and be highly resourceful.
Best wishes,

It's the same everywhere.

Obviously, it's awful. :(

I am fed up with the begging bowl so this was my response:

"Well what a guilt trip downer on a Friday afternoon.

It seems to me you need a sustainable source of income.

My idea is to turn all the council tip sites or at least a portion of it into a Re-use shop such as the Sue Ryder shop at Pontypandy tip or MSE Hospice shop at Rivendel. Visit one this weekend.

You can have a MSE school re-use shop at the tip local to the school run by parents volunteering. I will volunteer as Manager. Maybe the council will give you the site for free as they are not increasing your budget.

This goes in-line with what is happening globally with recycling. A scheme could be started for work experience for your school leavers too. The possibilities are endless.

You would basically selling furniture etc left at the tip to fund your school and others if the council are on board.

If you would like to talk to me more about it no problem."

Yep, That letter could have been written by any Headteacher of any British school, especially those in England and Wales!

Joking aside, I can actually see schools having to do something like that to raise money if the situation continues. Probably charge fees, in fact.

And your response was that the school should set up a charity shop at your local dump? Wow...

Please do not send that response. It will not be appreciated.

I am so proud of this school for having the balls to let everyone know what’s happening.
Is anyone watching the series ‘school’ on bbc 2 at the minute.
It’s a sad portrayal of the funding crisis in schools currently.
This letter is the norm for every school
and parents need to know the crisis education is facing.

Did you actually send that response? Coz selling people's crap is the answer to underfunding in education? If this is a joke I don't get it

Yeah this has gone over my head too. The school is massively underfunded so get parents to volunteer in a giant charity shop?

50% employers contributions?!

If you actually did send that reply then you're a dick. Local authority schools are in desperate measures due to a total lack of appropriate funding and they really shouldn't have to be thinking about raising their own funds.

You should be thankful that they're communicating with you and being honest about their situation!

I sent a large cheque in to one of my dc school this term as a result of a letter like this. I can afford it and am not prepared to let the current pupils suffer while making a political point. If you can’t afford it, no one is forcing you.
Please tell me your response was a ‘joke’?

If you actually did send that reply then you're a dick

Well said.

I do hope that was a joke, OP.

I'm hoping that the response wasn't real.

I'm a school governor. I honestly don't think parents at our school have any idea how dire things have become. Our chair is reluctant to share too much in case it creates panic, but frankly, I think we should be panicking. The children in our schools today are the future of our country. We are letting them down.

I was speaking to a friend today whose son is severely dyslexic. She has to pay over £300 a month for her son to have 2 hours a week specialist support within school. There are parents in the school whose kids have a similar diagnosis but whose parents can't find that money. Their kids get 15 mins a week extra reading with a TA - lovely and supportive but not trained to deal with the complexities that this diagnosis brings. It really brings it home when there is such an obvious 2-tier system within our state system. This is no one's fault apart from the governments'. If headteachers send letters like this then the only criticism I have is why they are not also painting them on billboards outside the school so everyone passing is having to be confronted with how broken the system is. With an estimated fifth of us living in poverty that's a lot of our kids who are going to be negatively affected ...

I'm a teacher and the situation in our school is absolutely dire. Shockingly bad. We can't afford glue, paper, whiteboard pens...basic resources.

From all the constant fundraising and 'restructuring' at my children's school, it sounds like they're in the same position. Just like most schools around the country sadly.

I am not doubting for a second that the school's situation is dire, because most are, but I still find the letter slightly misleading. Teacher pay rises were centrally funded - yes, there was a shortfall, which will be very significant for some schools, but it's simply untrue to suggest that no extra funding was made available. Also, there is a very good chance that at least some money will be made available to fund the pension increase. I think the school has made a mistake here - it's perfectly easy to write a letter about the funding crisis in schools without misleading parents, and this school is at risk of reducing the impact by allowing people to pick holes in it.

If you sent that reply then you're a twat. This isn't a joke.

The NEU are asking members if they’ll support strike action at the moment. There’s not much left schools can do.

I rather suspect some parents won’t support it though and we’ll get the usual comments of ‘can’t teachers strike on Saturdays or during one of the other 50 billion days of holiday they get a year’ or ‘are teachers going to get fined for their lovely strike day off like we do when we take our kids out of school for a holiday’ etc etc

But that’s for another thread, I guess.

Your recycling shop idea is daft. Given the amount of work it would be to make it (or pretty much amy other fubdraising event scheme) happen, the school would get a huge amount more money if each volunteer just did the same amount of time working in their normal paid employment and donated the additional income to the school. Community fundraising schemes are really not a solution here.

Government is desperate to shift costs on a number of fronts, to make it look like the problem does not sit with them centrally.
That was shown in a programme this week about UC where people are so short of money they aren't paying their rent, central govt saving money and the local authorities having millions disappearing in rent arrears. Accounting seems to be a conjuring trick.

What the actual fuck is that suggestion that schools who are in the business of education should set up a charity shop?

Education is supposed to be paid for through taxes.

You've really embarrassed yourself if you sent that email.

I suspect if this it true, at least the email is currently pinned up in a staff room somewhere, and will be giving the teachers a good laugh.