School leaders are warning that a funding crisis will force them into cuts that will have a “life-changing negative impact on a generation of children.”
Heads, teachers, and governors are set to meet today for a summit to debate the impact of real-terms funding cuts on schools.
Organisers of the North West Education Summit say that schools across 23 local authorities in the region face total real-term funding cuts of £192m by 2020.
Manchester headteacher Samantha Offord warned that she was faced with making more cuts despite having already lost teaching, teaching assistant and lunchtime staff jobs.
The headteacher of Birchfields Primary School said: “We made economies but in 2014 we could see our budget would fall off a cliff unless we did something drastic.
“We let 9 TAs go and made 5 teachers redundant. We thought that surely that would be enough but in 2017 we had to make 13 lunchtime staff redundant and reduce the hours for the others.”
She said this was adding to staff’s workload as people picked up more work as a result of the cuts
“When our budgets are cut by 10 per cent or more with the new funding formula, I quite simply do not know where I can cut that won’t have a life-changing negative impact on a generation of children.”
Today’s event will be addressed by NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman and former shadow education secretary Lucy Powell.
Mr Whiteman said: “Government funding is not keeping pace with inflationary pressures resulting in real terms funding cuts. Schools are falling into debt. There is a real concern that this will soon have a negative impact on children and education. Class sizes have risen, and schools have already had to cut teaching staff, reduce extra support for children, and even shorten the school week.”
A recent national survey by NAHT revealed that 65 per cent of school leaders “strongly agree” that cutbacks have already had a negative impact on the performance of their school. And only 8 per cent of school leaders said that they did not foresee a year where they would have an untenable deficit.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “There are no cuts in funding and over the next two years every school will attract an increase in funding through our fairer formula. By 2020, core school funding will rise to a record £43.5 billion - the highest ever and 50% more per pupil in real terms than in 2000.”
The North West Education Summit 2018 takes place today at the Mechanics’ Conference Centre in Manchester.
