A Salford headteacher has accused the government of failing to do enough to help thousands of schools facing a funding crisis. Ben Davis, in charge of the 1080 pupil St Ambrose Barlow RC High School spoke as unions warned of a "perfect storm" in which pupils' education will suffer.
Schools across England are planning on cuts because of spiralling costs, soaring energy bills and the added burden of an unfunded pay increase. Staff say they have been doing all they can to cut back, including sourcing the cheapest paper and supplies, but all of that takes time they don't have and there are no more savings to be made.
School leaders’ union NAHT, whose members mostly teach in primary schools, said its survey of more than 11,000 headteachers, the largest of its kind ever undertaken, reveals two-thirds predict they will have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours. Half say they are looking at reducing the number of teachers or teaching hours.
