Devastating cuts pile pressure on schools

CONTROVERSIAL cuts and changes to funding are squeezing the district’s school budgets to the point of threatened staff redundancies, the Herald has learned.

The Willows Primary School has already announced redundancies to its staff, while jobs also look set to be lost at Henley Primary School. And the fear is that with intensifying pressures on budgets, schools right across the district may have to consider the prospect of staff cuts over the next three years.

Headteachers blame the government’s new funding formula for schools, coupled with a real terms reduction in funding per pupil, for the problems they are facing.

The Herald has seen a copy of the letter that has been sent to staff at the Willows Primary School. It reads: “The budget is untenable and we as a school, cannot sustain it going forward.

“This situation needs to change in order to reverse the large funding deficit the school is currently facing.

“The school has made cuts in areas other than staffing, however these cuts are not substantial enough to make a difference. In order to draw our staffing budget in line with similar size schools the only option is staff restructuring.”

In a further statement to the Herald, the school added: “Willows C of E School is reviewing its budget following the government’s proposed changes to the schools funding formula.

“At this point in time, we are in the very early stages of assessing the impact of the changes and no concrete decisions have yet been made. We are currently undertaking a consultation and will not be taking any further action until this has been completed.”

Jenny Godsall, executive academy principal at Henley Primary School, declined to comment on reports of potential redundancies at the school, the number of jobs that may be lost or what roles they would be.

However, Miss Godsall did say: “The funding formula is creating challenges for most schools because it does not appear to be as fair as we had hoped. This will have repercussions for local schools.”

Warwickshire NUT Division secretary, Martin McMahon, said: “I believe that Henley-in-Arden Primary School are making redundancies and that involves teachers and support staff. I think it’s inevitable that other schools will do the same over the next couple of years.

“Support staff, such as teaching assistants are seen as a softer target for redundancies so these cuts will particularly impact on less able children or those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

“The reduction in school funding is having a huge effect and we calculate that schools in Warwickshire will be £28million worse off per year by 2020.

“The government says the funding formula will lead to fairer schools funding and no-one is suggesting that underfunded schools should not be given more money, but this is not a case of levelling up, it’s very much levelling down and we estimate 98-99 per cent of schools will be worse off.

“It’s a dire situation and what is shocking is that in 2010 5.9 per cent of GDP was spent on education, but that is going to be four per cent soon, which is as low as it has been since the 1950s and lower than any other comparable country.”

The change in the schools funding formula is not the only factor impacting on schools funding. Though the total national education budget is set to rise in real terms, the national school population is also going up. With inflation taken into account, this is leading to a real term reduction in funding per student.

The National Audit Office has confirmed unless more funding is made available, schools will need to find over £3billion of savings by 2020. This is equivalent to an eight per cent real terms reduction on the funding provided in 2014/15.

To add to schools’ woes, there are currently no plans to fund schools for imminent mandatory increases in staffing costs.

Clive Sentence, principal and chief executive at Alcester Grammar School, said: “I am firmly of the view that the government’s current funding plans are insufficient to guarantee current staffing levels across the state system, given that there are more pupils coming through and that there are no provisions for funding any inflationary or performance- related pay rises, nor rises in national insurance and pensions.

“So it is inevitable that there will be redundancies, particularly in schools that are small or who are not expanding.

“We are not anticipating making redundancies in the next couple of years, we’re getting around the reduction in funding by growing the school and making it more efficient.”

Kate Gover, head of the Henley, Studley and Stratford Schools Consortium, said: “Education funding should be a priority because children are our future and they deserve the best. I think all schools are trying to give their pupils the best, but it is difficult with a diminishing pot of resources.”

She confirmed that Claverdon Primary School, at which she is headteacher, was not looking to make staff redundancies.

Steve Jefferies, headteacher at Henley School, said: "We are facing the same pressures as other schools in the area - and nationally - and it is clear that educational provision in general will, in a few years' time, look different from how it looks at the moment.

"We will end up with a stripped down, education system where the core provision (i.e. delivery of subjects that contribute to the Progress 8 scores) will remain but where everything else will be marginalised.

"I don't think the government have really grasped the extent of the problem. This is particularly acute for small schools serving sparsely populated catchment areas in which the problems arising from funding cuts and rising staffing costs are hugely exacerbated by uncertainty over pupil numbers."