Budget 2016 - watch it live here, 12.30pm!

[KateMumsnet]

Chancellor George Osborne will introduce his eighth budget at lunchtime today - he's expected to announce fresh spending cuts of £4bn, as well as a radical shakeup for schools in England, with every school becoming an academy by 2020, effectively ending local authority control. He'll also announce new funds to finance a longer day for secondary schools, with heads able to bid for funds for additional school activities and overtime pay.

Join us here to watch live at 12.30pm - and do let us know what you think of his announcements here on the thread.

A lot of the details are in the documents rather than in the speech - see www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/508193/HMT_Budget_2016_Web_Accessible.pdf

A longer secondary school day will be hell on fucking earth for bullied pupils or those with MH problems.

Oh don't get me wrong I don't agree with it whatsoever. I was just saying I'm glad it won't affect primary school kids as they're too young to have such a long day. But i can totally understand how difficult it will be for secondary age kids who have a long commute on top of a long school day.

That's interesting DG.. So if you lose your job, you will be forced to use the funds, have to give back the money earned from the Government plus interest plus 5%. Therefore the Government saves on benefits, gets their money back plus interest and a bonus of 5%.

Knew there would be a catch.

And of course those ISA savings no doubt will have to be pissed away before any benefit entitlement so that saves the government a few quid and it's back to square one after every job loss, redundancy etc

Most children in private schools are there until at least four or five pm at secondary age, if not we'll before. They enjoy doing extra sport or drama or whatever. This is good news for all the bored kids I see in our market town from 3pm, up to all kinds of mischief.

KathrynL I guess schools not participating will be over subscribed but at least we will have the choice of where we send our primary aged children whereas those whose children are already at secondary schools who bring this in have little option but to suck it up.

How many of us are thinking lustful thoughts about JC?

And as has been stated Private schools get considerably longer holidays. They also aren't subject to the term time holiday ruling.

Coffeeisnectectar

Well, I have a 7yo soon going into Prep and I actually think the school day is less onerous than the State school I looked in to!

The state school day was nearly all sitting in the classroom with 2 hours of timetabled sports per week and a meagre selection of clubs, whereas at the Prep has timetabled around 4 1/2 hours a day of lessons (including a lot of music, art, drama, outdoor learning), forest school, 7-8 hours sports each week, and (if you really wanted to do this much) up to 13 hours a week of clubs would be possible, though I very much doubt any child does more than about 8hrs of clubs). The other non lesson parts of the day will be assemblies, form meetings, special events etc..... Honestly, the kids have so much fun, I really don't think the longer days are inflicted on them!

If they get tired easily, they have the option of going home at 4:30 after lessons end. Everything else is voluntary. Shall I PM you the list of clubs and see if you still think they have no fun and have longer days inflicted on them?

I agree State schools generally have far poorer facilities, but I think that really needs to change, not that I'm hopeful the budget will achieve that!

The secondary schools were I live finish at 2pm anyway.

abraid2, what about the impact it will have on children who are already members of groups/clubs/etc?

My DC wouldn't be able to stay an hour later in school AND continue to participate in groups they love. Not enough hours in the day.

Id be happy for my primary Dc's to have a extended day , it would give me more options regarding my job role , meaning more money in our family pot and a better career progession for me . The kids would cope fine as they were in nursery 8-6pm before I wangled 9-3pm as they started school.

I can see why it wouldn't sit well for other families though .... But as it only for secondary it wont matter for a good while yet for us anyway.

All in all nothing too much for us a family to stress about ....its what's they not telling us about that worries me !

Secondary schools round here finish at 2.30 or 2.45 at the latest they will be finishing at 4pm.
When I was at secondary we finished at 3.45.
Maybe this is a move for parents to opt for their local school in future, maybe free the roads up a bit if children are walking to and from school.
It would have an affect on people buying into catchment maybe too, if they are all the same.
I don't agree with all academies as I know nothing about them at all.
Are ther good ones and bad like normal state schools and private schools.

Could schools use the extra time to deliver 'normal' weekly PE lessons rather than 'extra' ones, thus freeing up timetable time for teaching the kids to pass their GCSEs? Is there a loophole?

How are schools supposed to afford longer school hours? It seems as if the government are saying that schools need to be open longer at the same time as they are passing on the responsibility of having to pay for these extra hours.

My DDs school has a great mix of activities too. She doesn't spend all day sitting in a classroom. They have topics which see them putting on things like Roman sports day. They do art, music, swimming, PE and drama. They have assemblies and also do school productions (I'm going to see her in the Lion King tonight - her third show this week and it finishes tomorrow so she is absolutely exhausted now).

However, if her school had these sorts of hours she wouldn't spend her monday evenings kayaking in the sea with her rangers group. She wouldn't spend her Wednesday evenings out riding her bike and she wouldn't be swimming on Thursday evenings.

If that suits you and your child then fine. However, the school my DD goes to also has a fantastic SENCO and as a whole have been amazing in supporting her to reach her potential and cope with her issues (she's going through ASD assessment)

As much as your choice of school sounds great, personally I like that my children have free time to play, read, go out with friends, just sit and chat to me, help me cook dinner, play with her cats and generally be a child. She chooses which activities she does and that's working well for us. An enforced system where you HAVE to do an activity every day must be hard on kids who quite frankly just want to go home and curl up in their room with a book.
I

That last post makes me seem a bit 'im alright jack ' don't misread me.

I loathe David Cameron with a passion I was just expecting to hear worse .

But why should school and it's teachers provide what would effectively be free childcare? That is not their job, they're there to educate your children and that is it. If you want your children to be cared for outside of school hours then pay for out of school clubs like the majority of working parents do.

CamboricumMinor

Of course not! Teaching (unless you're at a very cosy school) is mostly a shitty and unappealing job - no wonder there is a recruitment crisis. We need to make things better for teachers, not worse!

At my school the teachers work very hard, and they only have on average 15 per class and lots of TAs. I can't imagine how horrendous it would be to have double that number of children per teacher.

Basically, I think the burden on teachers should be lessened by more financial investment in schools, and that if an extra hour a day of extra curriculars is necessary (which I think it is) then it should not be the teacher staffing that.

I am seriously researching home schooling now. we might need to grind out teeth and push really hard to think of private schooling even. I am sick of this Tory government.

He has screwed up whoever gets in power for 2020.

We are going back to when Schools were free childcare with a bit of education thrown in.
The difference is now people work in all sorts of places, not just mills.
Education for children was brought in as childcare when they needed somewhere for children to go when they could no longer climb chimneys and work under machinery.

Build a nursery and nursing home on the grounds, sorted.

I'm not suggesting that teachers are childcare as such but I am forced to make sure my kids receive a education and a happy by product of that (for me) is that I get to earn money without incurring childcare costs .....lets not pretend that working parents don't think that way.

I wont comment on teachers and their profession as I'm not one but if my kids have to by law stay at school until 4/5pm then I will use that time to work more.

As for paying for childcare ... £997 per month for 2 Dc's for 3 days per week ,I was glad when they both went to school ,who wouldn't be !

Valentine2 I have been having similar thoughts for a few months, DD1 is 14 and about to start the new GCSE's (which apparently the exam boards haven't actually completed), DD2 is 9 and DS2 is 5, so a prime for being screwed by this system.

As far as the longer day goes, DD1 uses a public bus service for her 8 mile journey to school, which only runs 4 times a day - so if they made her school day longer she wouldn't be able to get the bus home. We live in a rural community where services are being cut further and further - it seems the government think people only live in urban areas.