DfE says sort school budgets by cracking down on colour printing

[noblegiraffe]

...among other suggestions. I’m sure this will have a massive impact.

They are coming for your worksheets.

In my school each member of staff has a photocopying budget per month and when it’s gone, it’s gone, so I’m not splashing out on colour printing anyway. What do your schools do?

schoolsweek.co.uk/crack-down-on-staff-who-do-too-much-colour-printing-says-new-dfe-guidance/

We hve never been allowed to do colour printing or photocopying so that won’t save many pennies in my school!

Getting rid of worksheets wouldn’t bother me...if my interactive whiteboard worked and we hadn’t already got rid of all the textbooks...!

I haven't got access to a colour printer, so I don't use one, obviously.

I very rarely print worksheets full page either, I shrink them so I can get 2 worksheets on one page.

And my department used all our budget on textbooks a few years ago (when the new GCSE came in), so we are expected to use the textbooks in the first instance, project things that can be projected, and only print if absolutely necessary.

Well, if we didn't have to 'evidence' each childs every move with a photo stuck into their books, it wouldn't be a problem! Maybe we need to speak to the DfE about that!

I’m primary and old. It’s relevant.
What stuns me is the sheer wastage of colour printing. Yes, print resources you need by all means. But ffs, why not laminate them so you can use them more than once?
My probationary year, we were still handmaking resources and covering them in plastic film. Now print and bin is so common, nothing is saved in so many schools. We take photos as evidence, colour is appealing but often unnecessary.
No, it won’t solve the massive funding crisis, but like closing doors in winter, it’s might end the wasteful mindset that doesn’t even think of savings.

Yeah I do the 2 on 1 sheet thing too! I have lots of bottom sets though and they can't cope with a lot of writing so I do have to print a lot for them - fill in the blanks type stuff, matching, all that, otherwise there wouldn't be a lot in their books! Don't do much in colour though. I'm amazed they think it will make that much difference. My classroom's ceiling is held up with duct tape.

The cost comparisons are something like 4p/24p for bw v colour.

Now that I'm on mn I can identify this as gaslighting from the government. It's not that the DofE is massively underfunding and overexpecting from schools. No, it's the teachers' fault there's no money because they occasionally use colour printing to make things nice for the children.

Had to print photos as evidence, the children were in pairs, except one group of 3. The person that printed them just did 3 copies of every photo, rather than select.
That sort of thinking.

Bonbon, the huge funding gap is entirely the fault of government choices. Article on the BBC SE news yesterday about the secondary places crisis as there are too many children coming through. NSS! They have known the children existed for 11 years before they needed a place.

Hah I print 2-up too, sometimes the writing is so tiny!

My classes get very excited when I tell them ‘yes you can write on the worksheet’ as it happens so rarely.

Our textbooks are held together with penis grafitti they’re so old.

But we’ve still had to make teachers and TAs redundant.

Penis grafitti?

This has me really cross.

Yeah, let’s blame the wasteful teachers for all the money shortages in schools, not the bloody funding cuts .

Well, if we didn't have to 'evidence' each childs every move with a photo stuck into their books, it wouldn't be a problem! Maybe we need to speak to the DfE about that! 

Check out SEESAW it'll save you a load of time and photocopying and the evidence is there for everybody to see.

That’s true, Holiday. Let’s talk about colour photocopying and not funding cuts, increased pupil numbers and the tricky issue of CEO pay because they’re all political balls-ups.

It’s the same across all the public sector at my hospital we can’t print in colour and we can only buy brown envelopes not white and we have to print on a horrible paper a bit like the old fashioned school loo roll.
All the big stuff has already been cut so we’re scrabbling around to save pennies now.

Slightly off topic, but I refuse to laminate. I'm not covering anything with landfill plastic.

I miss textbooks. The amount of worksheets printed off (then cut up and stuck in workbooks, so they don’t look like worksheets) is criminal.

I miss textbooks

I agree. However, with the curriculum changing so bloody often (with no evidence base), they are pretty much obsolete as soon as they arrive at our door. I’m sure OUP are doing a roaring trade though.

GL assessment piss me off too. If LAs want testing done on children prior to EHC applications, they should be free. Not £400 per test.

However, with the curriculum changing so bloody often (with no evidence base), they are pretty much obsolete as soon as they arrive at our door. I’m sure OUP are doing a roaring trade though.

Yes. Also criminal.

Agree re: EP assessments etc.

The paediatricians in our local hospital refuse to see children we think are on the autistic spectrum unless the school has paid for an EP assessment. They're kicking the can down the road because they're overloaded, and costing us money

We use recycled photocopier paper now. It's commendable. But all the grey worksheets are a bit depressing!

The textbook for my subject is £35 : so I bought one and now colour photocopy pages from it

In my defence, colour is kind of essential in my subject!

On a side note, schools do pass the cost of this fairly shamelessly on to parents. I discovered DS2 merrily prinitng a full colour 72 page GCSE revsion booklet yesterday!

We’re also encouraged not to print off homework sheets but attach them to the online homework system so that the kids have to work off a screen or print it out themselves.

I think there’s a massive problem here as you get the ‘education is supposed to be free’ brigade up in arms at the ‘parents can be reasonably expected to pay for school supplies’ brigade.

Both have valid arguments. Education is supposed to be free so schools have to be underhand in how they approach this. Like the whole ‘voluntary contributions to a trip but if you don’t pay it won’t run’ thing. If the government would fess up to the fact schools are woefully underfunded and parents should step up if they want better, then everyone would at least be clear about things.

This is hardly a new instruction though.
I started teaching in the 1980s, and have never worked in a school where you could colour print

Well, I suppose the banda sheets used purple ink

What I would be really interested to know us what the average teacher spends on printer toner for their home. As in my experience, when I"m in a school that restricts printing I just end up doing more at home. Colour printing is expensive (I teach at a private school and we're cutting back on it) but schools need to look at their overall provision and why so much printing is required. One reason is there is so much content at A level that you can't realistically have students write a lot in lessons...