After a tumultuous summer, Liz Truss will enter 10 Downing Street to find a stacked in-tray.

Her new administration must deal with a cost-of-living crisis underpinned by soaring energy bills, and a dwindling war chest with which to repair creaking public services. 

In education, which has seen three separate secretaries of state since July, Ms Truss - a junior minister in the Department for Education between 2012 and 2014 - faces a war on all fronts: looming teacher strikes, a regional disparity in attainment fed by a widening disadvantage gap and a growing mental health crisis among young people, to name a few. All underpinned by a squeeze on state finances, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade. 

Here are the most urgent crises for Truss and her education secretary to address, according to school leaders, policy experts and others.

Funding and cost-of-living crises

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, contends that the prime minister’s first priority has to be dealing with “the absolutely massive, urgent and immediate risks posed by cost pressures” and understanding the “urgency of the situation”.

“As things stand, there will be a serious risk to educational standards on the new education secretary’s watch unless they take action,” he added.

Jonathan Simons, director of policy at research agency Public First’s education department, said that DfE officials are already mobilising to hit the ground running from next week on the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on schools.

Schools will be in the queue for emergency funding if required, he said, adding that “the department doesn’t have the funds for any sort of bailout even if they wanted to; they will have to get it from the Treasury”. He added that the government “cannot treat schools differently from any other public services”.

Like staff working in other stretched services, teachers are facing an uphill battle in the coming months to shoulder burdens that go above and beyond their job description.

‘Permanently scarred’ pupils

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter and former chief executive of the Sutton Trust, believes that many will have to make “impossible decisions” that could involve “cutting back on any extras just at the time when poorer pupils need more support”.

He warned that a failure to take decisive action could see “a generation of poorer pupils permanently scarred”, adding that worsening home conditions, having to “concentrate in class on empty stomachs” and the possibility of lower attendance in general will damage their education. 

Energy bills

Among the primary funding issues troubling school heads is the energy crisis. Indeed, heads told Tes last week that they were “crying out” for government intervention as their budgets were “never designed” to cope with price increases in the region of five-fold.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, told Tes that the fuel price hikes were already “absolutely destroying schools and their budgets”. 

“I’ve been speaking with one member who was working out which light bulbs are essential and which light bulbs could be taken out of the ceiling; that’s how desperate the funding issues have become,” he added. 

Rachael Warwick, an executive headteacher with Ridgeway Education Trust, concurs, pointing out that “a finite number of schools and trusts” have already been “caught out” on energy bills because they are not on protected fixed-term rates. 

Ms Warwick added that as an “affordable essential”, the government must step in and protect schools in “immediate jeopardy” and consider what an energy price cap would look like for schools.

• Energy bill crisis: why schools face a ‘catastrophic’ winter
• School budgets: School cuts “increasingly inevitable” with 1.9 per cent funding rise
• More on the school funding crisis: Budgets ‘worthless’ as costs soar
• Attendance: Fix attendance, mental health and regional gap as priority, de Souza warns DfE

Reacting to Ms Truss’ victory Mr Barton added that: “the immediate crisis is the soaring cost of energy bills both for households and for schools and colleges”.

He added: “These costs will plunge more families into poverty and mean more children are left cold and hungry and in no fit state to learn. Given that there is no energy price cap at all for schools and colleges, spiralling bills will mean that they have to cut educational provision in order to balance their budgets.”

Mr Barton appealed to the new Prime Minister to ensure that she “protects families, children, schools and colleges from the potentially devastating impact of these costs”.

Teacher recruitment and pay

Retention and recruitment of teachers remains a widespread problem and, despite pay increases announced in July ratified along School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommendations, the issue remains at large.

Emma Knights OBE, chief executive of the National Governance Association (NGA), said the situation needs to be rectified “to make sure everybody is not entirely overloaded and overwhelmed”.

“We can’t recruit fast enough, we’re in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis,” added Paul Whiteman.

“Although a pay rise has been recommended by the STRB and agreed by the government, it’s not enough,” he said. “We’re in a real vicious circle right now where the pressures in school are so much that longer-serving teachers are deciding because of pay and other reasons to leave schools and longer-serving leaders are doing that as well.”

Close attention will also be paid to the momentum of teacher training schemes, such as initial teacher training (ITT) and national professional qualifications (NPQs), says Rebecca Boomer-Clark, chief executive of Academies Enterprise Trust, at a time when teaching is more difficult than ever.

“As well as the obvious and immediate challenges around funding, it is so important that we maintain the momentum around the early career teacher (ECT), ITT and NPQ reforms,” she said. “With the job of being a teacher or a leader more challenging than it ever has been, we must continue to invest thoughtfully and in a sustained way in the development of the profession.

Alison Peacock, CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching, said the government was “scrambling around” to fill teacher recruitment cold spots - describing the efforts as “very poor”.

“Somebody needs to come in and really have a look at what’s going to happen to make sure that we don’t jeopardise teacher training for next year,” she said. “If we don’t have enough places to train our teachers then our schools start to really suffer from shortages, it’s obvious.  

“I appreciate there isn’t any money in the pot but somehow we have to do something I think to help schools, it’s becoming desperate.”  

Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union said that whoever ends up as education secretary ”must look again at the case for a fully-funded pay rise which at least matches inflation.” He added: “Teacher recruitment and retention has been in a parlous state for some time, and this must be arrested urgently if we are to protect education services into the future.”   

Attendance

Pupil attendance has been a major focus of the government’s due to the impact of the Covid pandemic. Prominent voices such as children’s commissioner Rachel de Souza will hope this continues to be the case.

Almost 1.8 million pupils were persistently absent during the 2021 autumn term and, despite de Souza’s call for 100 per cent attendance on the first day back this week, school leaders are concerned the situation will worsen in the coming months as budgets are forcibly diverted to propping up bills.

“The new education secretary has got to face a problem of 1.7 million persistently absent children and 124,000 so-called ‘ghost children’ that have vanished from the school rolls completely,” said Commons Education Select Committee chair Robert Halfon. “They’re huge problems and we need extra staff and extra support, not money spent on energy,” he added.

The challenges faced by children with special educational needs and disability (SEND), who form part of this cohort of ‘ghost children’, cannot afford to be overlooked, according to Mr Simons of Public First. “Children’s social care remains on the edge of collapse and the SEND Green Paper cannot be left to the whim of the new secretary of state to change it,” he said.

Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, concurred, adding that the SEND Green Paper must be within the new secretary of state’s first three priorities.

Liz Truss has just over two years until the next mandated general election in January 2025. During her leadership campaign, she has been vocal on several education matters, suggesting she would increase the number of grammar schools and alter Oxbridge admission procedures.

Indeed, former education secretary Justine Greening said Truss has a chance of fulfilling the role of the “education prime minister”.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme on Friday, she said: “When I was relentlessly putting the issue of weak social mobility and Britain’s need to address that for the long term on the Cabinet table, the one person who would back me up in those discussions and debate was Liz,” she said. 

“If we see her now go into No 10 as PM, I certainly think she will be going in with the right mindset in relation to unlocking the potential of the British people being crucial to this country’s success.”