SKINT SCHOOLS FORCED TO BEG PARENTS FOR CASH
Heads ask for £20 a month to help Plea to families of 1.4 million kids
PARENTS are being asked to donate cash to schools battered by Tory cuts.
Heads have pleaded for £20 a month from every family to help up to 1.4 million affected pupils get basic teaching materials such as textbooks.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers warned: “This will get much worse.”
We are seeking regular standing orders of £20 per month per family. We are a registered Charity, and therefore for those of you who are tax payers, we would welcome the additional monies were this to be gift aided. PLEASE HELP Horsell letter
SCHOOLS are so hard-up because of vicious Tory cuts some cannot even afford basic teaching materials such as books and IT equipment.
Heads are left with no choice but to go begging to parents for cash to educate their children.
A survey found one in six state schools has sent letters to families asking for donations of £20 a month or more, affecting around 1.4 million kids.
One, St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School in Barnet, North London, suggested contributions of £250 per household to cover £100,000 slashed from its budget by Theresa May. Head Julian Ward said: “It’s embarrassing to have to ask parents for money.”
Another, Horsell Village School in Woking, Surrey, needs to plug a £65,000 black hole and pleaded with parents to send £20 a month by standing order.
And teaching unions warn things will get worse as the Tories will demand further cuts of £3billion in two years.
NUT general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “Children need an education system that supports their learning and provides a rich and varied curriculum but schools are struggling to provide this with current funding.
“When the Government’s real-term cuts take effect schools will simply be running on empty. Parents cannot sit back and watch their children’s education harmed by this bargain basement approach to schooling.
“The Government must listen to parents, MPs, heads, unions and school governors who have been lobbying to say that enough is enough.”
Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted added: “Schools are already struggling to make ends meet and children are already losing out.
“But underfunding means this will get much worse, since in two years’ time schools will have to make savings of more than £3billion a year.
“Unless the Government finds more money fast, today’s children will have severely limited choices at school and those from poorer families will be even further disadvantaged because their parents may struggle to contribute.”
The survey of 1,200 teachers in primary and secondary schools, by the NUT and ATL, paints a worrying picture of rising class sizes, job losses and reduced spending on equipment.
And it found cuts are affecting the quality of education in England’s 21,500 schools, with 3,570 of them pleading for cash from parents. Several begging letters have been seen by the Mirror.
More than half of the teachers polled said their school now charges parents to go to concerts and sports events.
Four in 10 said their school had cut spending on special educational needs, such as extra support for deaf children.
The ATL’s annual conference in Liverpool today will call for an urgent review of school funding and outline the “damaging effect of cuts.” It will also be raised at the NUT’s conference in Cardiff later this week.
Two weeks ago the Government’s spending watchdog, the Commons Public Accounts Committee, attacked plans to make savings of £3billion by 2020 from education – insisting the Department for Education “does not seem to understand the pressures that schools are already under”.
And the Education Policy Institute think-tank warned every secondary school faces losing six teachers, while primaries could axe two as the cuts bite.
The Department for Education insisted it has “protected the core schools budget in real terms”.
It said: “We recognise schools face cost pressures, which is why we provide help for them to use funding in costeffective ways and make efficiencies.”
HEADS asking parents to pay for Theresa May’s school cuts is the most damning indictment yet of the Government’s attack on education.
Begging letters sent out by schools in England are likely to be just the start.
And we’re not talking about funding school trips but money needed to buy basic equipment such as books and save teachers’ jobs.
Whether families can or cannot afford a monthly sum is an important question but the bigger issue is that education is supposed to be free in state schools. Yet May is introducing charges by the backdoor.
Her cuts, and the chaotic reorganisation of funding, is turning schools into the next NHS – a public service damaged by spending curbs, wild shake-ups and political contempt. Unless parents protest, pupils will lose out. May is guilty of a huge education fail and we urge her to reverse her cuts before it’s too late.