Schools minister Nick Gibb was jeered this morning at a knowledge-rich education conference when he tried to defend the government’s school funding record.
Mr Gibb spoke at the ‘Wonder Years’ conference on a knowledge rich curriculum, organised by Parents and Teachers for Excellence, in front of what might have been expected to be a sympathetic audience.
But in the questions session following the speech, a teacher asked him how schools could continue to offer a broad curriculum with funding so tight.
The minister replied: “We’re helping schools in challenging circumstances, whether they are very small or for other reasons, to help them to make ends meet with their curriculum. We would argue that we’re providing record amounts of money for schools, £42.3 billion this year, £43.5 billion next year.”
At this point, there was jeering from the audience. Several audience members were heard to say “no”, and one said, “that’s not the reality”.
In response to the unimpressed reaction, Mr Gibb said: “I know that we’re asking schools to do more with that funding. We fight very hard with the Treasury every year for school funding as all spending ministers do right across Whitehall.
“Of course the Treasury have their own pressures to deal with as well, providing opportunities for our young people when they leave school to have a job, an opportunity in a successful economy.”
He said that the DfE had a team of “school resource managers” that could “help schools to manage what are tight budgets around the country”.
He added: “There are examples of schools up and down the country of schools providing a very broad and balanced curriculum, in very challenging circumstances.
“What we have to do is try to learn from one another about how schools are achieving this.”
In a panel discussion after the speech, Professor Michael Young from University College London’s Institute of Education - a high-profile proponent of knowledge-rich education - chided Mr Gibb about schools’ resources.
He said that a knowledge-rich curriculum also meant “a resource-rich curriculum”, and that if a knowledge-led curriculum was introduced without sufficient resources education might get “even worse than before”.
