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.
Mr Davis, whose school has 100 staff, said: "We have no plans to reduce the number of teachers or the hours teachers work. But I don't know of any school where the increase cost of energy and and the unfunded pay increase has not had a significant impact. We are having to look at our finances very closely to make sure we have a tight budget.
"We're having to say 'this is how much we have and we can't go outside the envelope'. Whereas before we had money to accommodate unforeseen costs, now we don't.
"During the worst of Covid, professional frontline staff like ours and right across the country continued to provide an education for pupils. The government does not appear to appreciate that. We have got them through the pandemic.
"But instead of them taking the opportunity to see how they can improve education we are facing a situation where we are facing having to make difficult financial decisions which will ultimately impact on our children.
"Our school is calm and staff and pupils are working hard but against a background of huge uncertainty."
NAHT general secretary, Paul Whiteman, said: “The anger and desperation I am hearing from my members is unprecedented. Schools are being hit by a perfect storm of costs. In attempting to balance their budgets, school leaders are being faced with eye-watering energy bills, spiralling costs to resources and the financial impact of an unfunded pay increase
“With no fat left to cut following a decade of austerity, many thousands of schools are looking at falling into deficit unless they make swingeing cuts – education is truly in a perilous state.”
Last month Steve Chalke, head of the Oasis Academy chain, whose trust runs 52 academies, including the likes of Oasis MediaCityUK in Salford and Oasis Academy Oldham, highlighted the cost of energy bills in schools.
He said the average cost of energy for an Oasis primary school has risen from £26k a year to £89k a year - leaving them with an unfunded gap of £63k.
Almost half of schools in the survey said they would be forced to reduce non-educational support and services for children next year, including cutting back on vital services such as counselling, therapy and mental health support.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We understand the challenges facing schools driven by high inflation. To support them at this time, we are providing schools with £53.8bn this year in core funding, including a cash increase of £4bn for this financial year. This is a 7% per pupil increase in cash terms across schools and high needs.
“All schools will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, reducing how much they need to spend on their energy and giving them greater certainty over their budgets over the winter months. We are also providing schools with tools and information to help get the best value for money from their resources.”
