Schools are reducing the number of courses on offer, increasing class sizes and cutting ICT and resources in a bid to cope with falls in funding.
A survey involving 900 secondary school leaders reveals that half of them are planning redundancies in the coming months.
The research, which has been carried out by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), also shows that 90 per cent expect their financial situation to get worse in the coming year, describing the situation as “serious, very serious or critical”.
ASCL’s own forecasts show that an 11 to 18 school with about 1,700 pupils and a budget of £7.9 million will have to make cuts of £531,000 in 2016/17 – the equivalent to more than 10 teachers.
The research comes as the government has published its proposals to introduce a new national Fairer Funding Formula for schools.
The formula is set to be introduced in 2017/18 and the Department for Education (DfE) published its proposals for consultation on Monday (March 7). Schools have until April 17 to respond.
There are huge disparities across England with schools in the 10 best-funded areas getting an average of £6,297 per-pupil while those in the 10 worst funded areas get £4,208.
However, the proposals have not addressed deep concern that by evening out the system, the DfE will create losers as well as winners as there is no additional funding.
The proposals include plans to give funding directly to schools, cutting out local authorities. The DfE has also set out four “building blocks” for the new formula:
- Basic per-pupil funding - ensuring a core allocation for the costs of teaching all pupils.
- Funding for additional needs – including deprivation, low prior attainment and EAL.
- School costs – including fixed costs and those related to schools serving rural communities.
- Geographic costs – ensuring more funding goes to areas that face the highest costs.
There will also be a “minimum funding guarantee” to “ensure stability”, the consultation states.
However, the consultation fails to tackle fears that the new system will create losers as well as winners.
This is because specific details won’t be forthcoming until a second stage consultation. The DfE said: “Once these key principles have been agreed, a further consultation seeking views on the weighting of these factors will follow. This second stage consultation will set out full illustrations of the impacts of the funding formulae across schools.”
The consultation coincides with the publication by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) of a collection of essays from experts on what a new funding formula should look like. In his introduction, general secretary Russell Hobby warns that “early clarity” will be key to ensuring that schools can adapt “naturally rather than traumatically”.
In an NAHT statement on Monday, he added: “Today’s financial constraints inevitably mean there will be winners and losers. The success of the system will depend on the detail, which is scant in this announcement.”
The union has called for “detailed models” to be published as early as possible.
Meanwhile, Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of ASCL, added: “Simply redistributing the current pot of money is not enough on its own to address the significant real-terms cuts currently hitting schools.”
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “The government’s so-called ‘fair funding’ proposals will impose huge funding cuts on many schools unless additional funding is made available.
“The government has avoided giving any figures on how the proposed changes will affect funding levels. NUT figures based on proposals published by the influential f40 local authority group show that schools in many cities would be hit particularly hard.”
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, attacked the late timing of the consultation.
She said: “Once again the government’s timing is terrible. It has not left enough time for the new formulae to be confirmed to enable schools to begin to plan for next year.”
In November, chancellor George Osborne confirmed that school funding would only rise in line with inflation. It means that schools are facing significant real-terms cuts to their budgets because of increases to costs such as National Insurance, pension contributions and the one per cent pay increase for teaching staff.
At the same time, secondary pupil numbers are rising with a 20 per cent increase – to 3,287,000 – expected by 2020.
At the ASCL conference, its president Allan Foulds called on the government to invest more. He said: “The problems are so acute that there is a serious danger we will not be able maintain current standards, let alone raise them further.
“(The government) is simply asking the impossible to demand that schools and colleges take the next big leap forward in raising the bar without providing the essential materials with which to achieve that ambition.”
The ASCL research, which was carried out in January, also found that:
- 85 per cent of respondents did not have enough funding to meet the essential needs of their school last year.
- 77 per cent said their financial situation has had a detrimental effect on education provision.
- 38 per cent made redundancies in 2015, while 50 per cent expect to make redundancies this year.
- 69 per cent cut IT equipment and books in 2015, while 73 per cent expect to cut them this year.
- 66 per cent cut the courses on offer in 2015, while 70 per cent expect to cut courses this year.
- 64 per cent increased class sizes in 2015, while 75 per cent expect to do the same in 2016.
Speaking at the ASCL event, education secretary Nicky Morgan said: “There simply isn’t, in a time of austerity, a magic money tree from which government can find more. But I know there are pressures and it is indisputable that we are expecting you to do more with the budgets you have.
“Those pressures make the introduction of a national fair funding formula even more urgent, and we remain committed to beginning the transition from next year.”
She added: “I know many of you have already used our school efficiency metric and in the coming months we’ll be doing much more to help schools get the best value for money from their budgets.”
- To download the NAHT’s publication – Fair Funding: Getting it right – go to http://bit.ly/1LLvuFc.
- For the government's funding formula consultation documents, visit http://bit.ly/1TEdAqK