Plugging the holes Schools faced with impossible choices
Special schools across the county are trying to balance a tricky equation – lack of funds and fewer staff to help a growing number of pupils. Leigh Boobyer looks at the problems facing one school
MORE children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are joining special schools across Gloucestershire.
But the schools are not receiving enough money and there are fewer staff to help those extra children with complex needs.
What does this mean for the support of the children in those schools?
Picture your working days cut to one day a week because there isn’t enough money to pay you, but you know how vital your job is so you come in an extra day for free.
That’s what the school counsellor does at Belmont School in Cheltenham who, says headteacher Kevin Day, makes a two-hour round trip from the Forest of Dean to volunteer one day a week because she knows the needs of the SEND pupils at the school are so high.
On a daily basis headteachers, staff and governors are making these sorts of decisions right across the country on the back of cuts to education funding.
Decisions which has to put safety of SEND pupils – who suffer from complex needs, learning difficulties or mental health issues – as the top priority.
In Gloucestershire, the money used to support children with SEND is overspent by £4.7million and mainstream schools have had to consider plugging the black hole with money they receive from central government. But that does not make ends meet. Neither does the Government’s recently-announced cash injection into the county’s High Needs Block of £2.7million in two years.
Earlier this month, Gloucestershire County Council senior education officer Stewart King told a meeting of the county’s headteachers the funding crisis puts the county “in a very serious and challenging position”.
Mr Day is well aware of the harsh realities they face and how the goodwill of his staff is “at a maximum”.
He said: “When I took over I had 105 children and 52 members of staff.
“At the same time as the staff has been reduced, quite dramatically, the children have gone up by 25 per cent with more complex needs.
“The reaction I get from politicians is ‘Gosh.’”
He continued: “Being a headteacher here is like running on a treadmill and the faster I run, I still can’t get the balances under control.”
Over the last four-and-a-half years, while Belmont School managed to avoid redundancies but saw staff numbers fall from 52 to 42.
In the same period class sizes increased by 20 to 25 per cent in the same period of time with 14 classes reduced to 12 andthe numbers of SEND pupils within them increasing by eight to 10 and then 10 to 12.
Last September, Belmont had 127 pupils aged five to 16, up from 108 the previous academic year.
“When I took over, class sizes were eight,” said Mr Day. “The governors weren’t happy with going more than this, but we’ve had to compromise, compromise and compromise.”
While the numbers change, the money the school brings in remains flat.
It has relied on contract re-negotiations, letting out some of the school buildings and relying on parent teacher association Friends@belmont to fund extras such as climbing frames in order to ease the pressure.
The school has had to dramatically reduce the opportunity for school trips and relies on charities such as Cheltenham Rotary to provide chances for the children to enjoy new experiences such as pantomimes.
Staffing costs are eating a large chunk of Belmont’s budget with a rise in teacher pensions, the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, the abolition of the national insurance rebate and the national living wage.
The school’s business manager Lisa Hughes said: “All of these salary implications are no different to other schools in the county.
“We suffer from not having great numbers.
She continued: “In a secondary school you’ve got that economy of scale with greater numbers and their percentage of their overall revenue budget for their salary budget is probably around 70 to 75 per cent.
“For us here it’s about 85 to 87 per cent.
“Because of the high numbers of staff we have to have to support the children, it has a greater impact on our budgets because a large proportion of that is for salary costs.”
The Government’s National Funding Formula, a new system introduced last year to iron out budget inequities between schools in different areas, made no impact on Belmont.
The high costs stand against a backdrop of a school which needs £250,000 worth of repairs doing to make sure water stops leaking through roofs when it rains.
One classroom has to be patched up when the rain comes in, but the children can’t be moved out because there’s not a single other room suitable to teach them in.
Even if there was an available classroom, the pupils can’t be moved because the group in there are autistic and don’t cope well with change.
Mr Day explained: “The governors have had to prioritise children and learning first, and safeguarding those children.
“We’re unable to put any investment into the building and it is now literally falling down. The roof is leaking water.
“We can’t say ‘take the autistic children who don’t like change outside of that classroom and put them in the empty one down the corridor’ because
the school is full.
“Not only is there a case for more capital investment to keep our students dry and warm, but to meet the needs of other children who might need a place in the future.”
Nationally, year-on-year cuts have meant increasing numbers of schools in England are faced with the bleak prospect of going into debt.
The number of state secondary schools in deficit is four times higher than it was four years ago, according to a recent study by the Education Policy Institute.
And teaching and support services within schools have been cut to the point where there is no excess left.
Halfway through our interview, Mr Day had to leave to calm down an emotional pupil shouting in the hallway – an increasing occurence.
He said: “Three or four years ago, we had a team of higher level teaching assistants who would deal with really challenging or troubling behaviour.
“I am quite regularly pulled out of meetings now because those staff don’t exist anymore.
“I’m not complaining about that, that’s part of my job and I will always support my staff with these issues. When I’m not here it is even more challenging.”
Headteachers and local authorities are working together to plug the hole to protect children, but if nothing is done, and funding is cut, incredibly difficult decisions will have to be made.
Mr Day admits he may have to start saying no to parents who desperately need to find a place for their child or may even exclude pupils to protect others.
He said: “In terms of moving forward, there is no more to give.
“Goodwill is at a maximum and has dried up. The classes are big and it can’t go any further.
“The first thing I would have to do is no longer be able to commit more complex children into the school. I would have to say no.
“I know I haven’t got the resources, not just to teach those children effectively but to keep them safe.”
He continued: “Secondly, if I haven’t got the resources to keep children safe, then I would have to exclude that one child to make sure the other 126 can do well.
“It’s not because I have to, it’s because I haven’t got the resources to put in the interventions.”
If Gloucestershire’s special schools have to close their doors to children who desperately need that safe education, each one will have to be sent to out of the county by taxi at a cost well over £60,000 to the taxpayer, he added.
Wider Government cuts on social care have impacted local authorities too whose duty it is to safeguard vulnerable children.
Schools like Belmont are having to pick up the work of frontline social care services which have been stripped.
Mr Day revealed he had to introduce a dedicated safeguarding social care lead, a full-time post filled by a person who on a daily basis is safeguarding children, working with social care and helping vulnerable families.
He said: “The question I ask politicians is should schools need that post? Or should that post be funded by social care?
“Why have I got that post? Because it is absolutely essential to keeping children safe.”
He continued: “Fundamentally, the Government keep hiding behind the strapline ‘There’s more funding in education than ever before.’
“They are less keen to share the population has gone up massively.
“That, because of medical intervention and affective diagnosis, we are now able to recognise the needs of a lot more children.
“We’ve got more complex children, more premature babies being saved and a growing population.
“Technically there is more money coming into education but if you look at it in real terms, there is a lot, lot, lot less.”
Gloucestershire’s secondary and primary school headteachers have agree agreed to hold a special seminar in February to thrash through possible solutions to high needs funding, but the solution is unclear.
Approximately 70 per cent of Belmont’s SEND pupils have some degree of a recognised mental health need, 50 per cent are from vulnerable, often disaffected families and on top of that all the children have a learning difficulty as well.
Those layers of complexity, put together and to manage a class size of 12 with one person, cannot be easily handled.
All Belmont – and many other schools like it – can do for now is depend on the admirable goodwill of their staff and hope to avoid further cuts.