As a headteacher I am very aware of my role as a community leader: I understand that I have influence and try hard to never use it in a way that ignores the thoughts and wishes of the town I serve.

As such, the unprecedented march being undertaken by myself and my fellow heads tomorrow (Friday) morning has really caused me, and many of my colleagues, a great deal of angst. 

For example, I’d like to make it clear that this is not an anti-Tory thing. Our local MP, Robert Halfon, is Conservative and has done an excellent job in his role as chair of the Commons Education Select Committee. I also have Conservative councillors on my governing body. I have shown them the realities of the current funding regime: I think they understand what happens if you give £2 but take away £3. 

They have lived through the round of redundancies that we were forced to undertake a couple of years ago when we looked at our financial projections. They have also read the politically neutral IFS report that makes it clear that we have lost 8 per cent in real terms since 2010.

And then there’s the media coverage of our protest. We have already seen the BBC story this week that crowbarred in how headteachers’ pay in this country compares to others, a particularly unpleasant attempt to undermine intentions of those attending. With a degree of inevitability, the Mail has decided we are a bunch of raving communists out to bring down the establishment. (Having spent a great deal of time with fellow heads it really is laughable that anyone could believe this slur.)

As such, the big questions for me have been: Will we make any difference to the government thinking and what does a successful outcome look like?

The first thing I think we all crave is honesty from the government. The oft-trotted-out line of ‘more funding going into schools than ever before’ is the educational equivalent of ‘strong and stable’ from the last election. It has been proven time and again to be disingenuous at best. Honesty alone will get us more on board than we are right now.

I have been lucky to be given access, since being on the telly, to people in government that others don’t and feel this comes with some responsibility. So when I see the figures that 86 per cent of schools have reduced teaching assistant hours to balance the budget this year it rings huge alarm bells - I feel obliged to speak up. As money gets tighter it is our most vulnerable young people that are likely to suffer most and that is unacceptable.

When the government sees that 65 per cent of headteachers say that they strongly agree that the funding reductions have had a negative impact on the performance of the school, surely they will want to help. Success for us is a success for them after all.

With a budget coming up later this year we hope the Chancellor will respond positively to the request he received back in March to meet with heads. That way he will hear first-hand the crippling effect of the current funding system and understand that, far from being the enemy of the government, we could be one of their biggest success stories. However to do that he must realise that trying to do education on the cheap is a poor decision for the long-term future of our country.

Vic Goddard is principal of Passmores Academy in Harlow, Essex. He tweets @vicgoddard