A fifth of school leaders will be forced to make significant cuts to balance their budgets this year, new research suggests.

Heads are reporting that they have already had to sacrifice funding for teaching assistants, special needs support and school trips to stay out of the red, according to new polling conducted by the NAHT school leaders’ union.

It found that nearly a third (31 per cent) of school leaders had made cuts to balance their budgets in the past academic year.

And the situation appears to be getting worse, with more than one in four school leaders (26 per cent) predicting a budget deficit in 2021-22, up from nearly one in five (18 per cent) in 2020-21.

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In a new report into the financial challenges faced by schools in England during the pandemic, the NAHT says that the government’s £7.1 billion three-year funding package, announced in 2019, coupled with is “inadequate” Covid catch-up fund, has “demonstrably fallen short of what is needed to serve the nation’s pupils”.

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The union is now calling for an “ambitious programme of investment” from the government, without which, it says, the Covid recovery effort “will almost certainly fail”.

The NAHT points to a “crisis” in funding for children with special needs and disabilities (SEND), as its survey shows that an overwhelming majority of heads (97 per cent) believe that their school has “insufficient” cash to meet pupils’ needs.

Other findings from the survey, which had more than 1,500 responses from school leaders across all regions in England in June 2021, include:

• A large majority of school leaders (87 per cent) do not believe the Covid recovery funds they have received to date are sufficient to meet the needs of their pupils.
• More than a third (35 per cent) expect they will be forced to make cuts to balance their budgets in 2021-22 - up from 31 per cent in 2020-21.
• A fifth (20 per cent) expect they will need to make “significant” cuts in 2021-22 - up from 13 per cent in 2020-21.
• A large majority (95 per cent) say top-up funding for pupils with education, health and care (EHC) plans is insufficient to meet their needs.
• Four in five (79 per cent) have had to fund the purchase of additional SEND services because they were not available, or accessible, from health and social care. This rises to almost nine in 10 (86 per cent) for those working in the special sector.
• More than eight in 10 (83 per cent) do not believe they have sufficient capital funding to maintain their existing buildings and facilities.

NAHT members also told the union they had cut expenditure in their schools in an effort to balance the books by:

• Reducing the hours or numbers of teaching assistants.
• Reducing or stopping SEND interventions for specific pupils.
• Combining job roles previously carried out by separate members of staff.
• Reducing/cutting non-teaching staff (eg, site managers).
• Restricting school trips due to an inability to subsidise them.

As a direct result of the pandemic, school leaders reported average additional costs (such as enhanced cleaning and safety measures) of £24,571.

Separately, they reported average additional supply costs of £13,733 and average lost income (for example, rental or lettings of facilities) of £21,867.

Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said: “We are now seeing the heart-breaking real-life consequences of the government’s failure to invest in schools over the past decade.

“The government is forcing schools to cut back on staff, support for pupils, and activities that enrich the school day.

“A much more ambitious programme of investment is required from the government. Otherwise the recovery mission schools have been charged with will almost certainly fail.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This government is providing the biggest uplift to school funding in a decade - £14 billion in total over the three years to 2022-23. This is a £7.1 billion increase in funding for schools compared to 2019-20 funding levels.

“Next year, funding is increasing by 3.2 per cent overall, and by 9.6 per cent in 2022-23 for high needs.

“The national funding formula continues to distribute this fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts.”