{"id":12340,"date":"2017-05-11T16:48:25","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T15:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12340"},"modified":"2017-05-11T16:48:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T15:48:25","slug":"damaging-school-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12340","title":{"rendered":"‘Damaging’ school cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite has warned that damaging school cuts will increase if the Tories regain power on June 8.<\/p>\n

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The warning was issued after education<\/a> unions, including Unite, condemned plans by an academy chain to slash \u00c2\u01411.4m from its schools estates budget.<\/p>\n

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Under the plan\u00c2\u00a0the London-based Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) proposes to cut the number of buildings and estates staff in schools by over 25 percent.<\/p>\n

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The cuts<\/a> would result in at least 34 redundancies across its 66 primary, special and secondary academies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a move the unions say will undermine the safe running of the schools.<\/p>\n

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AET’s recently appointed chief executive, Julian Drinkall, who is reportedly receiving an annual salary of \u00c2\u0141240,000, is not one of those under threat.<\/p>\n

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Schools across the UK are affected \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including those in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Gloucester and Milton Keynes.<\/p>\n

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The unions \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201c representing head teachers, teachers, teaching assistants and school support staff \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are calling on AET to halt the plan immediately in favour of a proper period of genuine consultation with the schools, staff, and parents.<\/p>\n

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Unite national officer Fiona Farmer said, “Once again we are seeing a threat to children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education and our members’ livelihoods as another academy trust pursues its flawed financial strategy.<\/p>\n

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Farmer said central government funding cuts for schools \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which will amount to \u00c2\u01413bn a year by 2020 in real-terms \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is leaving many headteachers with impossible decisions.<\/p>\n

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“This isn’t the first academy chain to announce damaging cuts and it certainly won’t be the last if the Tories are allowed to continue slashing education budgets as if schools are a needless frivolity,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Farmer.<\/p>\n

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Earlier this week, Unite again joined with education unions to issue a final warning to an academy chain with schools in the East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside over plans to axe support staff.<\/p>\n

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The David Ross Education Trust<\/a> (DRET) is proposing to cut nearly \u00c2\u01411m in funding from school budgets and up to 40 jobs from across its 32 primary and secondary schools.<\/p>\n

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Farmer said Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education policy, which was announced yesterday (May 10), was the best hope for the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggling schools.<\/p>\n

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Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s key pledges including 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.<\/p>\n

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The plans will be funded from the \u00c2\u014120bn that will be raised by reversing the Conservative Party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cuts to corporation tax.<\/p>\n

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Farmer said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite welcomes Labour’s plan to stop cuts to school budgets, reduce class sizes and provide free school meals for all primary school children.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor too long education in this country has been undervalued and stripped to the bone by a government who’s main priority is to serve the needs of the privileged few.”<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite has warned that damaging school cuts will increase if the Tories regain power on June 8.   The warning was issued after education unions, including Unite, condemned plans by an academy chain to slash \u00c2\u01411.4m from its schools estates budget.   Under the plan\u00c2\u00a0the London-based Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) proposes to cut the number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[34,727,733,44],"wps_subtitle":"Education at risk under Tories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12341,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340\/revisions\/12341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}