Heads cut back on school books in funding crisis
MP claims falling budgets are not sustainable
HALF of schools in one Birmingham constituency say they have been forced to cut spending on books and other essentials.
And a quarter have cut spending on help for pupils with special educational needs.
The struggles facing city schools were revealed by headteachers who responded to a survey by Edgbaston Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill.
Ms Gill said schools had been hit by massive funding cuts.
The MP also arranged a meeting between headteachers in her constituency and Schools Minister Nick Gibb.
Those taking part included Michele Shevels, the headteacher at Bartley Green’s Kitwell Primary School, who said: “While the needs of our children and families are increasing, external support and help is becoming harder and harder to afford and more and more difficult to access.”
And Jane Gotschel, headteacher at Harborne’s Lordswood Girls’ School, said:
“The recent funding cuts following on from the Coalition’s removal of specialist school funding and changes to the way school
sixth forms are funded create additional pressures for high-performing 11-18 schools.”
Ms Gill (Lab) said: “Many schools have told me that they have already slashed all additional spending and some will struggle to remain open for five full days a week if the cuts continue.
“The cuts to school budgets have meant that children are not getting the same opportunities or support to achieve their potential as 10 years ago.
“These
funding
cuts
are
ripping through our education system from nursery right the way through to post-16 provision. School funding in its current form is simply not sustainable.”
The Department for Education says that the schools budget, set to be £43.5 billion by 2020, is the highest it has ever been.
But the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, has written to Education Secretary Damian Hinds warning that the Department for Education has presented figures “in such a way as to misrepresent changes in school funding”.
He said: “The result was to give a more favourable picture.”
Independent thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in a report on education funding: “Total school spending per pupil fell by eight per cent in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017- 18.”
Meanwhile, a delegation of headteachers from the region delivered a letter to 11 Downing Street, where Chancellor Philip Hammond is based, calling for immediate action to end what they call a funding crisis.
More than 600 school leaders and chairs of governors had added their name.
They said schools in the West Midlands had lost more than £140 million from their budgets.
The letter said: “In the West Midlands, schools are looking at drastic solutions to balance budgets including implementation of a four-and-a -half day week.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “School budgets are at breaking point. Government ministers are now freely admitting that something must change.
“We need to see immediate relief from the Treasury and a long-term commitment to increased funding for schools and colleges in the Comprehensive Spending Review.”
These funding cuts are ripping through our education system
MP Preet Kaur Gill (Labour)