Nearly a third of schools will have to reduce the number of children receiving tutoring support through the government’s flagship Covid education recovery scheme due to budget pressures, according to survey findings released today.
And two-thirds (66 per cent) of respondents to the poll of 11,000 school leaders - carried out by the NAHT school leaders’ union - said they would have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours because of the funding squeeze, while half (50 per cent) are looking at reducing teachers or teaching hours.
Last month a survey by the Association of School and College Leaders - which, unlike the NAHT, has a membership more weighted towards secondary than primary leaders - warned that three in five schools were considering teaching job cuts.
According to the NAHT survey findings released today, more than half (54 per cent) of schools said they will go into deficit this year unless they make further cuts, with just 5 per cent saying they will be able to pay their costs next academic year without doing so.
Schools are not permitted to run deficit budgets, so other cuts being forced upon schools include reducing non-educational support and services for children next year such as counselling (cited by 47 per cent of respondents), and reducing spending on additional targeted interventions for pupils (44 per cent).
NTP tutoring at risk in school funding crisis
In the survey, 31 per cent of leaders said they planned to reduce the number of pupils getting sessions through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), due to rising costs.
In a separate Teacher Tapp survey of 1,600 headteachers and senior leaders, 92 per cent of heads said students had gaps in their basic knowledge and understanding as a result of Covid.
And 81 per cent of headteachers responding to this survey, commissioned by NTP provider MyTutor, said that the financial situation is “the worst in living memory”.
Last week the ASCL wrote to schools minister Nick Gibb, urging him to remove the requirement for schools to subsidise 40 per cent of tutoring costs in order to increase take-up.
Currently government NTP funding can be used to pay for 60 per cent of the total cost incurred by a school to deliver catch-up tutoring, but some school leaders have said they are struggling to fund the remainder due to tight budgets.
Speaking in response to MyTutor’s survey, Zac Rawlinson, head of Year 11 at Featherstone High School in Ealing, West London, said that having to provide a larger proportion of the NTP cost “at the same time as the cost-of-living pinch and costs going up all over the place” is an “issue”.
“We have staff going around the school making sure the lights are switched off when not in use and that there’s no heating on in empty classrooms”, he added.
“But it is harder to pay for everything we want to offer, to make sure our staff all get their 5 per cent raise, and to find the additional money to supplement the NTP. We are always looking at the budget to see how we can offer this tutoring support, but if we can’t access other budgets then we will have to look at cutting tutoring.”
Schools have warned of an array of financial pressures this year - including rising energy prices and staff salary costs - and have been calling on the government for more funding to meet them.
Speaking about today’s NAHT survey, general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “Schools are being hit by a perfect storm of costs. In attempting to balance their budgets, school leaders are being faced with eye-watering energy bills, spiralling costs to resources and supplies, and the financial impact of an unfunded pay increase this year.
“With no fat left to cut following a decade of austerity, many thousands of schools are now looking at falling into deficit unless they make swingeing cuts. Education is truly in a perilous state.”
“The responses to this survey represent a significant proportion of the education profession - leaders out there in schools, on the front line, who are seeing the true desperation of the situation at hand. They do not raise the alarm lightly - when they speak, the government must listen. We must see urgent action on education spending ahead of the next Budget update”.
Other unions have also warned of cuts to education provision in recent weeks due to financial pressures.
A fiscal event planned by the Treasury next week could outline further cuts to government departments, with leaders warning that further reductions to education spending would be “chilling”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We understand the challenges facing schools driven by high inflation. To support them at this time, we are providing schools with £53.8 billion this year in core funding, including a cash increase of £4 billion for this financial year. This is a 7 per cent per pupil increase in cash terms across schools and high needs.
“All schools will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, reducing how much they need to spend on their energy and giving them greater certainty over their budgets over the winter months. We are also providing schools with tools and information to help get the best value for money from their resources.”
