Schools at crisis point, warn heads

Pupils in region ‘face losing £112m by 2020’

STRUGGLING SCHOOLS in Yorkshire are at crisis point, headteachers have warned, as education leaders gather in the region today to call for immediate action over “crippling” funding cuts.

The impact of real-term under-funding is being felt across the country, the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) has warned, citing figures which claim 84 per cent of schools in Yorkshire and the East Midlands face cuts with a collective loss of £112m by 2020.

The Department for Education has dismissed the figures as “misleading” and based on historical data which do not take into account increases for rising pupil numbers, but MPs in South Yorkshire have today warned that parents at some schools are being asked to fund even basic supplies such as books and stationery.

As school leaders, teachers and governors across South Yorkshire and north East Midlands gather in Sheffield today for the NAHT Education Summit, the union is calling for urgent action to invest in education funding.

“Schools are at breaking point,” said Rob Kelsall, national campaigns secretary of NAHT. “There is simply nothing left to cut when it comes to balancing the books.”

Large urban areas are seeing “significant” challenges, he said, while in rural parts of the region small schools are facing closure, with high-needs funding stretched too thin. Across the country, he added, a fifth of schools which responded to a NAHT survey confirmed they were introducing, or considering, a shortened working week to make ends meet.

“There’s a crisis which Government has been ignoring for too long,” said Mr Kelsall. “We are calling for the Government to take stock and recognise that we need to invest, for our children’s future and for the future prospects of this nation.”

Government cuts to budgets have been “unrelenting” over recent years, he said, with school leaders saying it cannot continue.

“The situation is untenable and we are calling on politicians on all sides to join with us and end this crisis right now.”

The Sheffield Education Summit, to be held today at Sheffield Hallam University, will see MP Louise Haigh join Stephen Betts, CEO of Learn Sheffield, to discuss the impact of funding on education in the city and across the region.

Sheffield has been particularly hard hit, claimed Ms Haigh, while in Barnsley it emerges a new initiative is being drawn up by councillors to gather evidence which will be put to central Government.

“Parents and teachers are both rightly angry at the state of our city’s schools after years of neglect from the Government,” said Ms Haigh. “I’ve spoken to school staff who have to bring in stationery for their pupils and raise funds for basics like books.

“The message I keep hearing is that there’s nothing left to cut, and if the Government don’t listen, it’s our children who will suffer.”

CHILDREN GET only one chance for a good education, and it will be a source of great concern for parents across Yorkshire that school funding cuts potentially jeopardise the futures of their sons and daughters.

The teachers, school governors and MPs gathering in Sheffield today to discuss levels of funding are right to give voice to those concerns.

The figures are stark, with 84 per cent of the schools in our region facing cuts in their budgets.

The difficulties they face are further underlined by the likelihood of parents in Barnsley being asked to make voluntary financial contributions in areas such as music lessons.

That, of course, assumes families can afford to do so, and begs the question of what happens if they cannot.

This financial squeeze on schools is not a matter of the teaching unions crying wolf.

Those who are highlighting the financial shortages are gathering evidence to present to the Government in order to lobby for more money.

The Government should listen and act accordingly.

Good education cannot be delivered on the cheap and, as a high-spending area for local authorities, schools have been hit particularly hard by austerity.

Teachers must be given the means to provide the education that our children deserve.

There is a clear mismatch between a Government of any party laying emphasis – entirely correctly – on the need for a skilled and educated workforce in the future, yet failing to provide schools with the necessary resources to help young people become exactly that.

Investment in schools is money well spent. It is both an investment in the life chances of each individual child, and a downpayment on a successful country of the future, in which they can pursue rewarding and satisfying careers.

Starving schools of the funds they need is a selfdefeating policy that should be abandoned.