Tories education on a shoestring

At St Nicolas’ Church of England school in Taplow – part of the Prime Minister’s constituency – parents are being asked to donate up to £30 a month to cover a projected £40,000 shortfall and avoid staff layoffs.

It is a scenario being repeated up and down the country due to school budgets being decimated. While the Tory’s have pledged to continue attacking education budgets, Labour has promised to reverse them.

Since 2015 the Conservatives have slashed ÂŁ2.8bn from primary and secondary education, leaving an increasing number of schools struggling to cope and ever more reliant on donations and volunteers.

If the Tories regain power, by 2022 they will have cut ÂŁ8.9bn more from education budgets and affected 93 per cent of schools. On average every primary school will be ÂŁ86,951 worse off, while every secondary school will have lost an average of ÂŁ370,298.

The results of reducing children’s education to a shoestring are already painfully evident. Last month Unite, along with other teaching unions, condemned moves by two national academy chains to slash budgets and staffing levels.

The David Ross Education Trust (DRET) is proposing to cut nearly £1m in funding from school budgets and up to 40 jobs from across its 32 primary and secondary schools in the East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside.

Meanwhile the Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) plans to cut the number of buildings and estates staff in its schools by more than 25 per cent, resulting in at least 34 redundancies across 66 academies in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Gloucester and Milton Keynes.

Unite national officer Fiona Farmer said, “These aren’t the first academy chains to announce damaging cuts and they certainly won’t be the last if the Tories are allowed to continue slashing education budgets as if schools are a needless frivolity.”

At the Furzedown primary school in Wandsworth, London, pupils have been asked to clean classrooms after one of the cleaners left and the school could not afford to replace her. The head teacher’s partner has also been obliged to conduct repairs and maintenance.

While the Conservative manifesto promises an extra ÂŁ1bn a year for school funding, partly raised by ending free school meals for infants, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that under the proposals budgets will still fall by nearly 3 per cent in real terms by 2021.

Labour’s education policy, which includes a more generous sum of £4.8bn, would be better for Britain’s struggling schools, according to the IFS.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said: “There is now no doubt about what Tory plans mean for education – our schools will see their budgets cut. And head teachers have warned us what the consequences will be for parents and pupils: fewer teachers, larger classes, a narrower curriculum, or even a shorter school week.

“The IFS analysis is clear: only Labour will give schools the resources they need to deliver a world-class education for the many, not just the few.”

Labour’s key pledges include reversing the cuts to school budgets with a real terms increase in funding, reduction of class sizes to under 30 for all five, six and seven-year-olds and free school meals for all primary school children.

The plans will be funded from the £20bn that will be raised by reversing the Conservative Party’s cuts to corporation tax.

Farmer said, “Unite welcomes Labour’s plan to stop cuts to school budgets, reduce class sizes and provide free school meals for all primary school children.

“For too long education in this country has been undervalued and stripped to the bone by a government whose main priority is to serve the needs of the privileged few.”