Our education system is teetering on the edge of a
significant crisis. The policies of this current government have left
schools in a dangerous place financially, having to reduce what they are
able to provide for children year after year. Over the last three
budgets, my primary school’s budget only increased by 1%. As our school
roll increased during this time, our budget allocation per pupil
increased by less than 1%. Teaching staff occupy around 48% of our
budget, and their salary increases on average by around 6% each year due
to national living wage, pension, national insurance, pay scales,
incremental increases, and inflation. Support staff costs increase on
average by 8% each year.
This all means that just looking at staff, our
budget would have needed to increase by £103k to cover costs, when in
fact it only increased by £17k. Add to this an apprenticeship scheme
costing £6k, being forced to manage our own building maintenance and
indemnity, and the value of the pound rising costs of resources and
trips – and the promised budget increase of £42k through the fairer
funding scheme is far too little too late. In order to balance our books
we’ve had to make redundancies of staff, reduce support to children,
reduce budget for resources, and even stop providing all children at
school with free fruit.
The
finances are probably the biggest threat to education at the moment,
but it isn’t the only threat. Good teachers are leaving the profession
en masse, as curriculum and assessment policy changes (plus budget
pressures) have increased pressure beyond many are willing to cope with.
Newly qualified teachers are not staying in the industry as the gap
between their training and the hellish pressure within actual teaching
is a gap too large for many to leap.
The increase of expectations within
this government’s curriculum policy has also reduced the ability of
children from less well-off backgrounds to engage with education because
their progress depends on them living in environments that add to and
support their education, like in increasing their knowledge of
vocabulary. In order to meet the demands of the curriculum, teachers
have had to reduce the amount of time teaching in more creative and fun
ways, as well as not being able to teach subjects that children in other
contexts would be getting at their home. This can surely only lead to
the gap between the rich and poor in our country growing even more.
Behind all the talk of funding increases is a real terms cut. Many schools are having to find ways to generate income in order to balance the books. Making this a 'Brexit' election threatens to mask the huge issues in other parts of our society. We need to examine everything, not just who we want sitting at the table with the EU negotiators.
