Successive generations of politicians have gleefully announced that they will protect the budget for schools, often to cheering audiences and a reassured public. Education minister, Nicky Morgan, proudly pledged that she would protect funding, and the 2015 Conservative party manifesto even suggested there would be a “real terms increase in the schools budget in the next parliament”.
But this is doublespeak of the most heinous kind. Just as junior doctors are being asked to believe they are actually getting a pay rise, so the government is misleading the public into thinking it is looking after schools.
The truth is rather different. Funding per pupil and pupil premium funding, provided for the most disadvantage, is only protected in cash terms, so these significant sources of finance are being cut in real terms. What’s more, the protection only applies to students up to the age of 16, and cuts to sixth form funding have been particularly brutal. Add in the 1% teacher pay rise and extra employer national insurance and pension contributions, all of which the school is expected to meet, and it’s clear that the ringfence looks rather flimsy.
All this left my school with a seven-figure deficit at the start of this academic year. It’s healthy, of course, to have a look round and see where some fat can be trimmed now and again. This is, after all, public money we’re talking about. But this is not the sort of cash which can be saved by trimming department budgets a little, or photocopying a bit less (although we do those too).
Support staff were the first casualties. They are the people who answer the phones, print reports, sort out all the letters that go home and deliver your child’s PE kit to them if they forget it. In short, they keep the school running smoothly. We said goodbye to colleagues who had done sterling work over many years, some of whom were hurt and bewildered at how quickly their job security evaporated.
Those who remain have little option but to pick up the work of their absent colleagues, despite being fully loaded themselves. More and more teachers are being taken away from the core business of teaching and learning to make sure the whole show stays on the road.
And even they have not escaped the chop. We have been re-planning our curriculum for next year to cope with between 10 and 12 fewer teachers. That means cutting classes. Extra nurture groups we had to support the most vulnerable with their literacy and numeracy have had to go. All subjects will have less curriculum time at A-level, while there are question marks over whole departments at post-16. Some arts subjects struggle to attract sufficient numbers to make classes financially viable. Where in the past we would have taken a hit on those groups, that is becoming less feasible. Some of these subjects have already been hit by the government’s drive to promote the Ebacc subjects at key stage 4, where arts subjects are noticeable by their absence.
Teachers who leave won’t be replaced to keep redundancies at bay. But more staff will be expected to teach outside of their specialist subject areas to fill the gaps. And all this comes as there is more curriculum change than we have seen in a generation.
It’s not exactly fantastic for morale and, as much as the leadership team tries to keep spirits up, it’s not massively surprising that the unions have been mobilised to express staff discontent. The problem is that we agree it’s fairly ghastly. It’s not what any of us went into teaching to do, but what alternative is there when faced with such a deficit?
“We will not burden our children and grandchildren,” George Osborne proudly declared in his most recent budget speech. “This is a budget for the next generation.” He will, I trust, excuse me if I don’t join in with the applause, because I can tell him what the next generation at my school can expect from his budget.
They can expect to be taught in bigger classes, with less help as we cut back on support groups and extra sets. They can expect to have less choice over what subjects they opt to take, particularly post-16, and especially if they are interested in arts subjects. They can expect to go on fewer trips; supply cover has been one of the many expenditures we are seeking to reduce, and that means more teachers have to stay in the classroom. They can expect to be taught by non-specialist teachers more often – and they should know that these teachers will also be more frazzled because they are increasingly doing the work of more than one person. They can expect fewer support staff there to help them through.
Believe it or not I’m an optimist. I love teaching, and am usually the first to encourage a positive outlook in the profession. So I take no pleasure at all in writing such a negative assessment of the financial position of my school. But the public need to hear an alternative narrative to the official government position. Trying to manage the real-term cuts is difficult enough, but what’s really galling is when the ministers responsible for them deny they’re happening. My appeal to them is to speak plainly without omission. Don’t fudge the facts about what is going on, and support us when we have to make these difficult decisions, rather than backing so far out the door they are virtually out of sight.
