A head teacher has described the devastating effect of the schools budget crisis in Cardiff with one warning councillors: “We are setting up our children for failure now and in the future." Staff will be cut, subject choices lost, and pupils still suffering fallout from the pandemic won’t get help they need, Patrick Brunnock, head of high-performing Corpus Christi High School, told the city council's children and young people scrutiny committee.
In a stark message Mr Brunnock said his teachers had complained the school’s recent glowing Estyn report was “false advertising” because so much of what they had offered was being lost. He said he has cut 16 members of staff ahead of September, specialist staff are being shed, and four subject choices, including music, have gone.
In a budget impact statement to the committee on July 4 Cardiff secondary heads said: “Already this year the measures we have taken (to meet costs) will significantly negatively impact pupils and disproportionately affect vulnerable learners. Standards will drop.”
Read more: Schools in Cardiff face 'considerable deficits' and children’s education will suffer, warns headteacher
The comments follow months of warnings about redundancies in schools across Wales, partly as a result of Covid recovery grants from Welsh Government ending and budgets not meeting spiralling costs. A number of schools in different areas have announced job cuts and one – Stanwell School in Penarth – has been given an emergency payment to stay afloat.
Outlining the huge problems its schools face Cardiff Council said deficit budgets for 2023-24 have been set at:
- 34 of its 99 primary schools (34%);
- Four of its 18 secondary schools (22%), and;
- One of its seven special schools (14%).
Cardiff council said part of the problem was falling pupil numbers with 22% of spaces in primaries vacant. Schools are funded per pupil and the council has set “specific guidelines for schools facing deficit” – but heads fear these may affect their work.
After the meeting on July 4 Lee Bridgeman, chair of the committee, described the situation for the city’s schools as “worrying”. He admitted the extra £25m given to them by the council for next year was not enough but said funds from the Welsh and Westminster governments were not enough, especially with Covid still having a major negative effect on attendance as well as mental health and social support needed for pupils and their families.
Mr Brunnock told the committee he was proud of his staff and pupils but described how things have changed since the pandemic and cost of living crisis at Corpus Christi and other schools. He said literacy and numeracy interventions have been cut while standards, attendance, and behaviour have also declined.
Describing pressure on staff he told the committee: “I can see they are on their knees." He went on: “These cost-saving measures, if fully implemented, in three years will have a profound impact on pupil health, mental health, wellbeing, achievement, and life chances at a time when post-Covid recovery can least afford it.
“Much will be put at risk if we are required to implement this plan fully. We welcome further advice and guidance from the local authority...these are really, really difficult times.”
Lansdowne Primary School head teacher Michelle Jones said attendance continues to be a problem since the pandemic and schools need funds to support families to get children to school. Her staff go to children’s houses to collect them for lessons.
Attendance at Lansdowne now runs at 89% but 166 of the 360 pupils have rates of below 90% attendance and 64 are below 80%. Nine children from five families have attendance varying from 44% to 74%. “We have children in year six whose parents think they are at school but they are in Victoria Park or Thompson’s Park,” she told the committee. Radyr Primary School head teacher Claire Skidmore said her school had started informal counselling at breakfast clubs to help children come to school.
Data given to the committee show attendance is down since pre-Covid and exclusions are up. In the 2022-23 academic year so far 2,252 children have been excluded from Cardiff schools comprising 325 in primaries, 1,866 in secondaries, and 61 in special schools. That compares to a total 2,013 exclusions last year and 1,065 in 2020-21.
Cardiff’s cabinet member for education, Sarah Merry, said higher than expected funding from Welsh Government had allowed the council to give schools an extra £25m, representing a 9.29% increase to schools, but there were cost pressures. She said: “This isn’t just a Cardiff problem. Schools across Wales and the UK are facing similar deficits. Of the 42 schools here three have managed to balance their budgets for the upcoming financial year but all of them are working with Cardiff Council officials to create a medium-term financial plan which should see most schools remove their deficits within four years.” Officers were “analysing school spending plans across the board with a view to identifying any additional schools which may face difficulties in 2024-25 so that early support can be given”, she added.
Cllr Merry said a number of factors contributed to the financial challenges Cardiff schools are facing. This includes a 22% vacancy rate in primaries and Welsh Government grants such as the pupil development grant, education improvement grant, and minority ethnic grant remaining static.
Calum Davies, Cardiff Conservative councillor for Radyr and Morganstown, said: "The first step the council should take in talking with the Labour government in Cardiff Bay is properly allocating all the money they get from Westminster properly – for every £1 spent on education in England, Wales receives £1.20. Is that all going to schools?. I've heard first-hand from teachers the vast scale of the issues that stubbornly linger from the pandemic so a fall in pupil numbers should be an opportunity to better fund schools per pupil so teachers have the resources they need rather than cut back."
Laura Doel, NAHT Cymru national secretary, said some Cardiff schools have been left with no choice but to set deficit budgets because of the continued squeeze on school finances. “Wales is blighted by continued unfunded pay awards coupled with local authority budget cuts and spiralling utility costs which have left schools crippled. Governing bodies have a make a choice – make cuts to staffing to balance the budget or go into deficit," she said, warning that schools need adequate staff to keep up with the demands of the new curriculum and new additional learning needs legislation.
