OVER 1,000 head teachers from England and Wales gathered in Parliament Square at 11am on Friday before marching to Downing Street to protest at savage funding cuts to their schools. There, a delegation of six heads handed in a joint letter to Chancellor Hammond calling on him to reverse the cuts.
Suffolk head teacher, Kelly Head from Springfield Infants School, said: ‘It’s head teachers here protesting because there’s no one left. ‘We are using people left, right and centre to cover all sorts of jobs in schools. There’s no one left.’
The ‘Worth Less’ organisers of the grassroots protest highlighted the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ finding that per pupil funding has fallen 8% in real terms since 2010. School budgets have been squeezed by unfunded pay rises, National Insurance payments, other cost pressures and rising pupil numbers.
Heads carried placards and banners saying ‘Straight Outta Funding’, ‘Our Children Our Future Invest in Education’, ‘Education is an Investment not an Expense’, ‘Schools Cut To The Bone’ and ‘Fair Funding Now’. Ros Allen, Roseberry School, Epsom, head told News Line: ‘We’re here because schools are critically underfunded. ‘We need the government to recognise that students are being adversely affected today. This is an immediate crisis.
‘There are half a million more students than there were five years ago, and there are 5,000 less teachers than there were a year ago. ‘We are experiencing an 8% cut in real terms. We have students with very complex special needs and mental health needs. ‘The government has cut all the services to those children, and schools are having to fill that gap, otherwise these children are left with no support at all.
‘The cuts are affecting the most vulnerable children in our society first. This isn’t a union action, it comes from angry heads that call on Philip Hammond to come to the table with school leaders and listen to the serious impact that his fiscal policy is having on our young people and our schools.’
The head of Urswick School in Hackney, east London, Richard Brown said: ‘We are not people usually out on demonstrations or protests. ‘But we are here because we’re having to operate a budget mechanism which is almost impossible. ‘The government keeps falsely claiming that there is more money for schools than ever before. The truth is there are more children and greater cost pressures than ever before. As a result, the people who will suffer are children and our country’s future.’
Sharon Williams, the head of Newnham Croft School, Cambridge declared: ‘I’m here because I care about our children’s future and their education. ‘Cambridgeshire is one of the worst funded counties in the country. We don’t want other schools to have less. We want new money from the Treasury to counteract an 8% rise in costs over the last three years.
‘Poorly-funded schools cannot afford the basic essentials. They are having to cut staffing. Schools are expected to do more than ever before as other services decline e.g. health and social care. ‘We are asked to do more with less. We are especially concerned for children with special educational needs and medical conditions. ‘We need a £400 million injection now for that group of children. The bottom line is we need investment for the future of the country.’
Rob Benzie told News Line: ‘I work for Somerset head teachers and am in the Somerset schools forum. We have a group of ten head teachers from Somerset here. Our schools are so badly underfunded and have been for many years. The government promised to address the underfunding issues in 2014. ‘But it has done nothing of any significance because any increase in funding has been offset by increases in National Insurance and pension contributions and an increase in the number of pupils.
‘Schools minister Nick Gibb is being duplicitous in saying there is more money in the system. The government is not recognising the cost pressures on schools. ‘What Nick Gibb is offering us is pitiful in terms of what schools need in relation to the shortage of teachers and retaining them because of the workload and pay and cost of living. ‘The pay increase of teachers has been below inflation for the past nine years.
‘So it’s difficult to make teaching attractive as a profession. ‘We need a national funding formula that funds all schools adequately so we can give all our children a world class education.’
Tim Coulson, Valley Road School, Henley, said: ‘I’m here because I have to make sure every child in our school has a great future and we’re funded accordingly. ‘We’re all here not just for our own school but for every school.’
Craig Burgess, Woolson Community Primary School, Warrington, said: ‘We need adequate funding for our schools, not rhetoric from Westminster. ‘The reality is we don’t have enough money for our schools to do what we need to do. ‘We’re here from everywhere – from Cumbria, the North East to Cornwall. Heads are agreed nationally that funding is not sufficient. ‘We’re taking a joint letter to Downing Street today to outline that current funding is not enough to give the children of this country the outcome they deserve.’
The head of Olga Primary Schools in Tower Hamlets, Linda Ewers, said: ‘We’re facing increased costs and decreasing budgets. ‘Our children deserve a world class education, that doesn’t come cheap. We’ve got more children, higher pensions, not fully-funded pay increases and higher deprivation.
‘Schools are affected by the cuts in social care and other provision that’s used to support families. The unions are campaigning against the cuts and we need parents campaigning as well.’
Chris Wade, head of Huish Epscori School near Langport, Somerset, said: ‘I’m here because we’ve had enough. The constant cuts in real terms to the education budget means schools are having to do more with less money all the time.
‘We’re bearing the brunt of the cuts in social care, the police and the health service.
‘These cuts are eroding all the external support we could call on and so we’re having to fill the gaps with our own budget – and budgets are squeezed all the time.’
Katie Blood, St Bartholemew’s School, Brighton, said: ‘Our school staff were threatened with redundancy last year. ‘That was only saved because people left. We’ve now got less people to do more work. ‘We don’t have enough money. The budget has got smaller and smaller. We can’t continue to raise standards and give children what they need.’
