We must keep demanding change for our children’s sake
HOW bad does it have to get before people realise how bad it is? That is not my question, but that of Castle School teacher Alex Street in Tuesday night’s BBC Two documentary School.
Exploring the difficult decisions heads and teachers are making daily on the back of cuts to education funding, the series brings home the harsh realities schools in the Castle School Education Trust are facing.
In the first episode of the grim sixpart documentary, the stresses of running a school are laid bare.
When Chloe, a 16-year-old student about to sit her mock GCSEs, suffers a panic attack, it feels nearly symbolic of our education system today.
Pupils in South Gloucestershire are among the bottom five lowestfunded in the country. The Government’s new National Funding Formula relocates cash away from schools like Castle, compounding problems the school already faces.
So when Philip Hammond ‘generously’ gives schools a £400 million
Michael Yong, who writes on education in the West, reflects on the damage being done by cuts to school funding
budget bonus to “buy the little extras they need”, calling it a “nice gesture”, you can see why the Chancellor was left with egg on his face.
No, Mr Hammond, schools don’t need your condescension or sneering remarks. They need the money, and quickly.
After years of stagnant budgets and rising costs – higher pupil numbers, greater mental health needs, maintenance costs – schools like those in CSET are struggling to make ends meet.
No, it’s not just about money. No, it’s not just about teachers facing pay cuts of £6,000, or headteachers asking parents for donations, or fundraising for loo roll and stationery.
No, Mr Hammond, it’s our children who suffer from these cuts.
When Chelsea sets off a fire alarm in a cry for help, teacher Alex Grant admits they are struggling to give her the support she needs.
She is a bright, promising pupil, but struggles with the trauma of being racially abused in primary school.
But because pastoral staff numbers have been halved, she gets “on average 10 minutes a week”, according to Mr Grant.
The rawness of what Chloe and Chelsea are going through should make any parent sit up and take notice. I hope you did.
This is not fiction. This is not hearsay or political propaganda. This is not the ‘lefties’ and ‘snowflakes’ making things up.
This is our children’s, teachers’, parents’, headteachers’ cry for help.
It is not about “whiteboards, a couple of computers, or whatever it is they want to buy” – the “little extras” as Mr Hammond would put it – it is about the next generation.
“What kids need is teachers’ time. That’s all they want. That’s what’s gone,” as one teacher explained in the documentary.
Bristol is among the cities facing the largest cuts, according to the teaching unions’ calculations, while South Gloucestershire is dumped into the bottom five based on per pupil funding.
In the run-up to the last general election, thousands of parents, pupils and teachers took to the streets of Bristol to protest the cuts.
There is a reason it drew such an audience – some 6,000 people, if Avon and Somerset police’s count is to be believed – and it is because this was not about silly politics or the “little extras”.
These were people who cared enough to come out on a rainy Saturday afternoon and into the city centre to make their voices heard. This was not your usual crowd of protesters – for many that day, it was their first protest.
Things have got to breaking point. Will Roberts, chief executive at CSET, told me that to protect the number of classroom teachers, he has had to find savings nearly everywhere else.
If you watched episode one, you’ll know what he means.
Blocked sinks, broken windows and pupils wearing coats indoors because the heating is not turned up.
“If parents realised the extent of what’s happening they would demand change. At some point, that must happen,” one teacher said.
At one point last year, 6,000 people did. But we need to do it again, and again, and again. Because this is what happens when we spend more time talking about money and budget cuts and the “little extras”, instead of our children and what we can do to help them achieve.
So let me ask you this: “How bad does it have to get before people realise how bad it is?”