Head teachers to march on Downing Street against cuts in school budgets

HUNDREDS of “hamstrung” head teachers are to march on Downing Street on Friday in what one has termed an “Arab Spring” style revolt emanating from the home counties.

They will deliver a letter to Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, warning him not to treat them as “fools” by insisting that schools are receiving “more money than ever before” and that there are “more teachers being recruited than ever”.

They say that the reality is “an entirely different situation” where swingeing cuts to school budgets are leading “wholly unacceptable” consequences.

These include swelling class sizes, scrapping subjects and extra-curricular activities, laying off support staff and using Pupil Premium funds – meant to be earmarked for supporting the most vulnerable pupils – to prop up the school’s overall budget.

All of this is compounded by difficulties in recruitment and retention of teaching staff, they add.

Jules White, headmaster of Tanbridge House School in Horsham, West Sussex, who organised the march, said the scale of revolt is “unprecedented” and is a last resort after years of their pleas for funding falling on deaf ears.

He said that head teachers are “fundamentally hamstrung” and told of his frustration when ministers claim that “we’ve never had it so good”.

Dr Robin Bevan, headmaster of Southend High School for Boys, a grammar school, said he and his colleagues are “deeply infuriated”.

“It is the head teacher equivalent of the Arab Spring, the same kind of awakening – we have used all the modern technologies that make getting in touch very easily.”