A cursory look at recent headlines speaks of deep problems in school funding in the UK. Special needs funding is at crisis point, sixth form and FE funding has fallen by a fifth since 2010, children are raising money for their own education and headteachers are using cash for disadvantaged pupils to prop up budgets.
The Guardian reported this summer that some UK headteachers spend more than 50% of their time seeking charity to support essential subjects, and seperately headteachers and teaching unions have said recently they will defy any attempts by the DfE to block legitimate criticism after they were warned not to express political views. On Friday 28 September up to 1,000 headteachers will gather at Downing Street to call for increased investment in schools.
The Guardian’s Anywhere but Westminster series recently spoke to teachers and parents at a Walsall school hit by funding cuts and learned schools are increasingly communicating cuts they face to parents and others in the community via banners and posters at the gates.
Banner up at St Dunstans Primary school in Birmingham. £49m in cuts! How can we still provide the education kids deserve with cuts like this? #saveourschools #schoolcuts @rob_kelsall @SaveSchoolsUK @MidlandsNUT @LouRegan1 @KiriTunksNEU @JackDromeyMP @SchoolCuts pic.twitter.com/DEbyDuPh7k
— SOS West Midlands (@SOSBirmingham) May 15, 2018
The union-affiliated School Cuts website, which tracks cuts and advocates for change, has created template banners and organised a mass unveiling earlier in the year, though at least one school was asked to remove it by the local authority.
Share photos and tell us situation where you are
If you are a parent of work for a school we would like to hear from you about this messaging around cuts. We don’t need to see photos of the school, but are interested in how cuts are being explained – and to whom – so if you have an image of banners or letters we are interested in seeing them. If you have been involved in creating any messaging we would also like to hear from you. Sharing in our form is encrypted and only the Guardian will have access to your contributions.
Please take care not to take any photographs which identify children under the age of 16 without permission.
If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here.
