There’s never enough money in schools. Not really. Not for everything we’d like to do. And yet with it, we convince ourselves, and sometimes others, that we could do great things.

Unfortunatel,  the outcomes haven’t always matched the claims, and after a decade of austerity and shrinking funding pots, some have become cynical about just how much funding schools really need.

Desensitised to claims of shortfall, they have convinced themselves that the funding crisis is really just a budgeting crisis – that claims of deficit are really just evidence of inefficiency.

After all, gross spend is higher than ever, right? The resistance is just schools’ inability to cut their cloth and differentiate between luxury and necessity. Didn’t you know we’re in austerity? Every little helps.

A group of 7,000 headteachers in England decided enough was enough and sent a letter out to parents outlining the impact of the funding crisis on our schools.

As part of the news coverage, Siobhan Lowe, a headteacher from Surbiton in London, said she’d been forced to clean the toilets and work in the canteen to try and cover up for the funding shortfall. The budgets were too tight, she said, and so in a commendable show of leadership, she got on and did it herself.

School funding pressures

The impact on children’s education is familiar: the declining quality of provision, the increasing class sizes, the cutting of support staff – but, too often, the human impact is neglected in a haze of statistics and counterclaims.

Ms Lowe’s touching anecdote of how her pupils, feeling sorry for her, began to support her in completing jobs around the school, is testament to their good will and character and her inspiring leadership. But we all know that, commendable as this blitz spirit might be, this way of operating is not what our schools should be forced to contemplate.

Nonetheless, it had me thinking. You see, small-school headteachers do this kind of thing all the time. It’s just part of the job. I mean, who else would do it if they didn’t? There isn’t the budget to employ anybody to do these jobs, so it’s often a case of rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck in.

In addition to meeting all the safeguarding, HR, health and safety and budgetary requirements every other head must meet, they must also keep the school safe and maintained and ready for learning. In our smallest schools – there are nearly 2,500 schools with fewer than 110 pupils – it is not at all uncommon for the headteacher to also be the caretaker, IT technician, painter and decorator, fire warden, first responder, security expert and general DIY-er extraordinaire. All of this without a deputy, teaching part-time and for less salary than an upper secondary teacher in London.

It doesn’t stop there. On top of a responsibilities portfolio that would leave a great many of us feeling faint, they also manage to provide an excellent education for those in their care.

The hard-working heads of small schools

Working within an accountability system which often seems designed with urban schools in mind and a political narrative that seems to treat them as an inconvenient afterthought, they manage to adapt to the ever-shifting political winds and not only keep their heads above water, but also thrive.

The most obvious recent example is curriculum. Spare a thought for those seeking to align with the latest Ofsted demands with just two teachers and the head to redesign and ensure compliance across seven year-groups and often 10 subjects and more. And don’t even mention the two-year (and sometimes three-year) rolling curricula.

It’s not impossible – those who work in these schools are often incredibly talented – but it’s not straightforward either. The workload involved is immense; the costs in resourcing are often more than can be borne. And yet they will do it.

None of this is to downplay the challenges faced by schools such as Ms Lowe’s in Surbiton – the headteacher of that school is absolutely right to highlight the impact of funding cuts on our schools.

Rather, it is to celebrate the thousands of extraordinary teachers and leaders who run the smallest schools up and down the land, the unsung heroes of their communities, the heartbeat of often isolated places. Despite all the disadvantages and challenges, they provide an excellent education to the children in their care.

It is not a job we could all manage, but, as a parent of children who attend such a school, I, for one, am grateful for the remarkable efforts and incredible talents of those who do.

Michael Merrick is a teacher and RE lead at the St Ninian’s Catholic Federation, Carlisle