Call to scrap ‘devastating’ new school funding plan
ATOWN hall has called on the government to scrap a planned new school funding formula saying it will have a ‘devastating impact’ on pupils.
Councillors in Rochdale say that the changes will see £15m slashed from the borough’s education budget resulting in ‘fewer teachers, fewer teaching assistants, fewer GCSE options and fewer chances for our children’.
They will pass a motion next week calling on the Education Secretary to drop the plans, which are scheduled to come into force in 2019.
It states: “This council condemns the new National Funding Formula for schools and the real term reduction including the impact of inflation which will mean the borough’s secondary schools will lose over £7m.
“Our primary schools will lose over £8m when the new scheme is introduced.
“We call on the Secretary of State for Education to scrap the plans which will have a devastating impact on our schools and children’s education.
“Rochdale’s schools have done a fantastic job in recent years in driving up standards and improving examination results.
“This will be put at risk by these unfair and unacceptable cuts in government funding schools.
“Rochdale council supports the campaign by Rochdale’s headteachers against these damaging government cuts and requests the Chief Executive to write to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education expressing our grave concerns at the impact the new National Funding Formula will have on our schools; and demanding the plans be scrapped.”
Union chiefs fear the cuts will result in the loss of 400 teachers’ jobs in the borough.
Nick Wigmore, secretary of the National Union of Teachers’ Rochdale chapel, has previously condemned the move as ‘unacceptable’. to our
He said: “Rochdale schools are being forced to make decisions that no headteacher should have to make, including reducing school staff and teachers, increasing class sizes and reducing the range of subjects offered simply to balance the books.”
The national funding formula will radically overhaul how school funds are allocated and hopes to resolve longstanding differences in the levels of funding at different schools.
Education chiefs say the new system, which is still under consultation, will transform how the funding is allocated in a ‘fair, transparent, simple and predictable’ way.
The consultation case for change document says: “Fundamentally, the funding system should enable schools and local authorities to give the pupils in their charge the best possible opportunity to maximise their potential.
“It is widely acknowledged that the current funding system fails to do this, and is unfair and opaque.”