Financial pressures faced by schools risk “heavily” impacting disadvantaged pupils and impeding education recovery, school leaders have said at a webinar run by Tes.
Speaking at a Tes Education Insights Expert Panel webinar, headteachers and trust leaders spoke of the need to continue supporting families during the cost-of-living crisis, but struggling to have the finances to do so.
School leaders have spoken of facing an array of financial pressures this autumn, including soaring energy costs, and funding teacher and support staff pay rises.
And the comments have been echoed by education leaders as well, who have said that there are “very real” fears that funding problems could hit the “most vulnerable pupils”.
Speaking as part of the webinar, John Halstead, chief finance and operating officer at Consilium Academies, a group of nine schools in the North of England, said that his “concern” was that the most disadvantaged pupils would be impacted “most heavily” as a result of this.
“What we’re finding is the innovative spend that we had planned for this year - we’re talking a lot about Covid recovery and catch-up - that’s what we’re having to pause. It’s inevitable that there’s going to be an impact on provision. Our moral duty is to provide that support, ultimately, we’ve got to meet the needs of the children, but what it does do is place pressure elsewhere in the budget”, he said.
“My concern is it’s going to be the most disadvantaged students that are impacted most heavily, in terms of recovery from Covid, in the opportunities those children have when coming to school. School trips are an example - there are enriching activities that a lot of students don’t have access to outside of the school system and that’s a real shame.”
In order to avoid disadvantaged families feeling the impact of cuts, Alison Brannick, principal at Landau Forte College Derby, said her trust was looking at how they could make savings on central trust costs first, because there had been significant increases in the need for financial support from families this year, as the cost-of-living crisis bites.
She added: ”We ringfence a significant part of our budget to support families, with uniform, paid music lessons, bus passes, to ensure that we can fund trips for disadvantaged young people, that I am absolutely determined that we will still continue to do.
“We can see from the volume of contact that we’re getting from families since we’ve returned to school asking for help is higher than ever before and really noticeably different with families contacting us and asking for financial support.”
Amanda Wilson, headteacher at St Alfege with St Peter’s Church of England Primary School in London, said that teacher and support staff pay rises had added an extra £40,000 to her budget, which was a “lot of money” for a one-form entry primary school.
She added: “We’ve had to change our fundraising strategy now to look at how we can fund our families, where can we find additional pots of money, because we can’t fund it from our school budget, but we know that it’s a service that our parents need. We have to find that money elsewhere.”
She said that her school had employed a fundraiser last year, to try and generate more funds, as part of this strategy.
But talking to Tes after the webinar, she added that the fundraiser - who works one day a week - would focus on what they could do to support families with the cost of residentials, educational visits and developing the school’s food bank.
Ms Wilson added: “The number of families who are struggling at the moment is growing and our current budget cannot stretch to support them, without it impacting on what we need to use to support teaching and learning, which we need to prioritise. One impacts on the other so it’s an impossible situation.”
Simon Knight, joint headteacher at Frank Wise School - a special school in Oxfordshire - said that, in special schools, funding cuts went beyond affecting the additional support that could be offered to pupils.
“For the specialist sector, it’s not about breadth and depth of curriculum, it’s about an existential threat to the viability of what we do. It’s not about the quality of education now, it’s about safety to operate”, he said.
School leaders echo webinar comments
Headteacher union leaders have also raised some of the issues discussed in the webinar.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that there was a “real fear that schools may have to start considering staffing cuts, which could disproportionately affect the most vulnerable pupils and those with the highest needs”.
While Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the pupils who most need additional support are those “from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs”, and that is “harder to provide if you have to cut teaching assistants or increase class sizes”.
“Pastoral and specialist support is also constrained if there are budgetary pressures”, he added.
“And if schools have to reduce curriculum choices, then it is disadvantaged pupils who suffer the most because their families are not able to supplement schooling with music, drama, dance clubs, and the like.”
The Department for Education has said it is supporting schools with £56.8 billion this year in core funding, which includes a cash increase of £4 billion.
It also says that it is continuing to work with the sector to understand pressures.
Tes Education Insights is a new subscription product from Tes for those who work with the schools sector. To find out more, visit our Tes Education Insights web page
