Special-school leaders have warned that cuts to “critical” classroom support staff could lead to heads not being able to guarantee the safety of pupils and staff, as a snapshot survey shows one in four fear they will be forced to reduce numbers to cope with rising costs.
The warning comes after a quarter of special schools, hospital schools and alternative provision sites said they would have to cut support staff in a recent poll run by the National Network of Special Schools for School Business Professionals (NNoSS).
Almost a third (32 per cent) said they would pause further staff recruitment, while 60 per cent said they would reduce resources and 20 per cent would reduce enrichment activities.
In the poll, which covered just under 50 schools, nearly two in five members (39 per cent) said rising costs would push their school into a deficit budget this year, while three in 10 (31 per cent) said they would be forced into the red next year.
It also found that additional costs incurred as a result of the teacher pay award ranged from £6,000 to over £100,000 in some trusts, while for the support staff pay award, some trusts were looking at additional expenditure of over £600,000.
Special school staff cuts ‘pose a safety risk’
NNoSS said that some respondents to the survey were worried about not being “adequately staffed to guarantee the safety of pupils or staff” and highlighted the impact this may have on staff wellbeing and sickness absence moving forward.
And special-school leaders told Tes that classroom support staff, including teaching assistants, were “critical” to safety in special schools, as they enabled them to meet the behavioural and medical requirements of their pupils.
Simon Knight, joint headteacher at Frank Wise School in Oxfordshire, a special school for children aged 2 to 19, said that without significant financial investment, special schools would “not be able to cover the additional salary costs, and without these essential staff we will not be able to safely operate”.
“Teaching assistants are critical to special schools being able to safely and effectively meet the educational, behavioural, medical and personal care requirements of the children we work with,” he said.
“Reducing staff numbers will not only compromise the quality of education but increase the risk of both children and staff coming to harm.”
Sudhi Pathak, director for finance and operations at Eden Academy Trust, a trust that runs special schools across the country, warned that the trust would be dipping into reserves this year to meet rising costs.
“When we reduce staffing, it can become a health and safety issue - it’s not just a case of reducing staff and that is that,” he said.
“We’re cutting back where we can but it’s not like in mainstream where we can increase class sizes.”
‘Saturation point’
Warren Carratt, CEO of Nexus Multi-Academy Trust, which operates special schools in Yorkshire, said the special school sector was “already at saturation point” and any further cuts would “ultimately harm the quality of provision for our most vulnerable children”.
But he added that if schools were forced to make these cuts, it could mean they have “no choice but to shrink”, which he said would risk leaving councils with “nowhere else to place pupils but in the independent sector”,
“This will create huge delay for children and families getting the right provision at the right time,” he added.
Special schools are facing a range of financial pressures at the moment due to factors including rising energy costs and increasing salary bills.
Earlier this summer, leaders warned that unfunded staff pay awards would “disproportionately” hit special schools and risk putting them on a “fast-track route to becoming unviable” financially.
Leaders at special schools, which tend to spend more on staffing, said their budgets would be hit particularly hard by pay rises, with one saying at the time that the consequences for vulnerable pupils who rely on staff support were “disastrous”.
There have also been concerns about maintaining the services that the schools provide, with leaders warning earlier this autumn that they were fighting “tooth and nail” to keep hydrotherapy pools open despite soaring costs leaving them in “impossible” situations.
Issues with the levels at which the schools are funded have also been raised by many in the sector.
Special schools are allocated £10,000 per place, but this has not increased in several years, despite inflation.
And leaders have also flagged up concerns that the allocation of the funding under the Schools Supplementary Grant (SSG) is a “postcode lottery”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Councils are responsible for making sure there is appropriate education for all children in their area, including for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
“We have increased high-needs funding to £9.1 billion overall this year to help councils with their costs and will continue to work with them in targeted ways, offering direct support and intervention where necessary, so all families can feel supported.”
A spokesperson for the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said: “Councils are doing all they can to ensure all children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, get the best possible education and support they need, within the budgets made available by government, while also supporting schools.
“We are urging the new government to eliminate councils’ high-needs deficits, which would help to significantly relieve the strain on councils’ budgets and enable them to better support children with SEND.”
