Should schools discuss budget cuts with parents?

[Yvetteballs]

Some might say no because public servants can't be politically partisan. I'm inclined to say yes because with some schools facing 4 day weeks, for example, the situation is severe. Parents may prefer to raise money to support their school rather than have their children's education suffer.
What do you think?

Of course they should! Budget cuts will affect children's education. Parents need to know. It would be wrong for schools not to discuss budget cuts. They are going to affect actual provision of education.

There are all sorts of things parents might do with the information.
Parents may prefer to change their voting pattern, or get out and publicise, and try to bring about change.

Nope. Unless they want to be accountable to parents on a monthly basis on where their wastage has gone.

The sheer disparity between funding makes a farce of this whole issue. For example, inner London schools spend an average £5900 per pupil per year. The east Midlands spends £3900 per pupli per year. A £2k difference per child, thats a phenomenal amount!!!!!

Clearly pupils with special needs in inner London are more valuable than pupils in Birmingham? or is it the difference in cost of triple mounting wall displays?

Heaven forbid if I suggested that London schools had more 'influential' parents that lobbied for the higher budgets to be allocated to them........

The current system stinks, and its the poorer areas that will be expected to take the biggest cuts. Cutting the top spenders absolutely needs to happen, and if some reallocation can be distributed to the lowest budgeted areas, then thats a double win in my book.

Er does that stat account for wages? Which are obviously higher in inner London.

Remember Carolines that the cost also goes towards staffing and that staff in London are (rightfully) paid more.

The new system is also going to be an absolute nightmare and many schools will suffer. If we don't tell parents what's going on, they will expect the same levels of service and will have no idea why we can't achieve that.

I don't think it needs to be political, could just be a 'this is how much our budgets will be cut next academic year and this is what it will mean in real terms'.

Cross post, sorry.

@carolinesbeanies a starting teacher in inner london is on £27,000 compared to £23,000 outside of London and it's fringes. So 30 children are more expensive in London then outside of London.
Costs of repairs etc are also likely to be more expensive in London then outside.

£2K extra per pupil though, is an extra £60K per class. The 'London allowance is about £4K extra for the teacher..... that doesn't account for the other £56K per class

"£2K extra per pupil though, is an extra £60K per class. The 'London allowance is about £4K extra for the teacher..... that doesn't account for the other £56K per class"

Exactly Backforgood. Perhaps the Diane Abbot school of maths is at work here......

What about the cost of buildings/property/maintenance - surely that would explain the London cost?

Loads of things are more expensive in London

Inner London schools faced challenges that most schools don't; what their extra funding shows is that it has had a direct impact on results.
It's astonishing that in the light of this, this govt. is looking at cuts - they should be raising funding across the country to match London not reducing
Carolines have you ever been involved in school budgeting?
I'm in West Sussex and our heads do ask us to contact our MP about funding and I have done so.

But back to the point .... no I do not think that the school should publish their budget to parents, they do to the Governors which have parental representatives.
The head needs to decide whether paper or pens are more important, not us.

Ok so it's:

4K for the teacher
4K for the TA's (let's guess at 2)
3K for contribution to HTs salary (also more)
3K for the contribution towards dinner ladies, cleaners, caretakers, and office staff extra pay.

That leaves us with 46K

So shall we say 6K increased maintenance/building costs.

And then 40k towards the salaries of EAL teachers, TAs as well as EAL resources.

Obviously my maths is rubbish: this is extraordinarily crude because there actually will be other legitimate costs I haven't considered or factored in.

I just don't buy the argument that London schools are overfunded! ALL state schools are woefully underfunded.

Break it down. £2000 per year. 39 weeks per year. £51.28 per week. 5 days per week. £10.26 per day.

The difference between the 'North' and London, including the inflated salaries that London schools have to pay, they increased costs of utilities, deliveries, services, and everything else, is covered by £10.26 per pupil, per day.

Yes.

My DCs school nearly had to close the 6th form due to funding.

When parents found out the financial state the school was in they nearly lynched the HT for not telling them sooner, then stuck their hands in their pockets and voted Labour

The HT has since admitted he was wrong not to be open with parents TA about the financial struggles he deals with.

Lottie - schools across the country don't have TAs - from this year, many will struggle to have a full time TA in Reception even, let alone in Yrs 1 - 6.
However, let's not be pedantic about the detail - I totally agree with your statement (and as others have said) that this is about all state schools being UNDERfunded, not about a few that might have more appropriate levels of funding.

yes parents should know and yes schools should be accountable.

Yes they should.

DDs high school have cut the school day. They informed the parents it was due to unruly children during lunch hour so by reducing lunch by 30 minutes it removes the issue of disruptive children running riot. The school day finishes 30 minutes earlier to account for this.

No one questioned this until the local newspaper listed our school amongst others were reducing staff working hours by shortening the school day by 30 minutes. This is saving the equivalent of 2 full times teachers salaries that they can spend elsewhere. Now parents are asking questions about why they were lied to etc and the school is struggling to keep the disgruntled parents happy with their explanation of the situation.

It wouldn't have been as bad for the school had they just said, we need to save £xx and the best way to do it is reduce the school day. Yes, parents would have been cross but they would have understood. But to place the blame on students and lie to the parents only to have the press expose the reasons is just crap.

Why on earth would a headteacher ruin the reputation of their school by telling parents they have a behaviour problem when they do not? I would remove my dc from any school that couldn't manage pupil behaviour at lunchtime. It wouldn't matter how many full-time teachers the school has if behaviour is poor - as this probably means lessons are disruptive as well. Perhaps the school are lying to the press now and don't know which 'truth' to own up to?

The City Academy (a very successful secondary school in Hackney) has been featured in the press (The Guardian, The Independent etc.) recently because it plans to reduce teaching time by 30 minutes a day to save costs;

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-cuts-force-city-academy-hackney-to-reduce-lesson-time-by-30-minutes-a-day_uk_59369c41e4b013c4816ae35f

However, the school already has a much longer teaching day than usual (and the school library is open from 7.30am - 6.30pm) plus lesson times will only be reduced by 5 minutes each.

It's only when you look at the staffing levels that you realise just how well funded this school must be compared to other schools in disadvantaged areas outside of London;

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/135835?tab=workforce-and-finance

The pupil to teacher ratio is 1 teacher for every 10.3 pupils plus the school has 73 (62.5 full-time equivalent) teaching assistants

Is Labour promising this level of funding to all schools in disadvantaged areas? By what date/year would they be hoping to achieve this by - 3 years time, 5 years? Do they have a 'fairer funding formula' in mind - would they reduce the budget for schools like The City Academy?

Clavinova the school do have behaviour problems. Its well known in the community and several students over the last 2 or 3 years have appeared in court and had their stories printed (not named due to their age) in the press however the financial situation wasn't well known.

Using the school cuts map it showed only a small reduction in the budget, 1 teacher equivalent it suggested, but it appears that cutting 2 teachers is the minimum they need to do. Parents are being asked to provide text books from September which they haven't had to do before, trips have been cancelled, there are none planned for the foreseeable future. They school has increased its intake this year by adding another 2 forms but cut the number of staff.

I would suggest that the behaviour issues were the lesser of 2 evils when explaining it to the parents. What sounds better to you ? The school are trying to reduce 'known' problems by shortening the school day or that the schools budget has to be cut far more than expected despite what we said at the last open evening and despite our best efforts at not wasting money on professional artists to paint inspirational murals on the walls but we just cant make the numbers add up even though we have a Professor of Maths as department head

The head is very good at reassuring people then doing the complete opposite. The school said finances were fine and that they could do ok despite the expected cuts. They felt this was helpful to parents to know the schools is doing ok. The reality is money isn't ok, theyre struggling like a lot of other schools but parents aren't stupid they do see when things start to fall apart and had the school kept parents more up to date some parents may not be removing their children at the rate they are doing. My understanding from a Governor is that 1 year group has lost 40 children since Easter, most citing the fact that they have no idea how the school will be performing in 12 -18 months time and they're not prepared to risk it with their children. They all want reassurance that the school will still be standing and not bankrupt. The school just ignore their concerns.

Yes.
And this is not London bashing - there has been more improvement in education outcomes in London than any other area. Some of their increased funding is rightly for cost of living.
East Anglia has some of the worst funding and some of the worst educational outcomes....

And the reason for yes is because schools are set up to have some accountability to parents e.g. governing bodies. Thus us changing with some academies.

OdinsLoveChild
Good behaviour in school would be paramount for me.

Carolinesbeanies, do feel free to go into a few London schools and advise on precisely where they're wasting money. We all appreciate that, despite the close involvement of independent governing bodies and auditors, you know better.

It is not wasted money in London but schools there are clearly more generously funded. If you have a Library open for 11 hours a day, for example, this is beneficial but expensive. Few schools can have this level of support so the ones that do will have it chipped away by polication of the new formula.

Governors are there to manage budgets but it is a foolish GB that does not consult with parents if it is changing the school day (it has to) and is making other significant changes that impinge on parents and children. Leadership is vital in such circumstances.