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School leaders 'disillusioned' and 'devastated' by funding crisis

School funding and finance
Stark testimonies from “disillusioned” and “devastated” school leaders have laid bare the damage that the current funding crisis is wreaking on student outcomes.
  • “This is profound. I am looking at 15-20 job losses to cover these costs.”
  • “I have no option but to make significant redundancies across all areas of the school, from SLT to support staff.”
  • “Catastrophic. The scale of savings required in-year is unachievable.”

The testimonies have been published as part of a funding survey undertaken by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL, 2022) and involving 630 leaders working in schools in England.

Earlier this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reported that, under the current school funding settlement, per-pupil funding in 2024 will be around 3% lower in real terms than in 2010 (Sibieta, 2022; SecEd, 2022).

The 2021 spending review set the core schools budget in 2024/25 at £56.8bn, meaning this shortfall equates to £1.8bn.

Funding per-student in colleges will remain 11% lower and in school sixth forms 27% lower.

An Education Policy Institute (EPI) analysis last week concluded that the 3% shortfall equates to £150 per-pupil in primary schools and £200 per-pupil in secondary schools. This represents £40,000 for the average primary school budget and around £210,000 in the average secondary school (Andrews, 2022).

The analysis adds: “This equates to the cost of just under one teacher in the average primary school and between three and four teachers in the average secondary school.

“On the back of a decade of real-term cuts, a weakened link between funding and disadvantage and a widening gap between the poorest children and their peers, this paints an extremely worrying picture for education and for the outcomes of young people across the country.”

It is a sentiment the school leaders responding to ASCL’s survey echo. The survey finds that 98% of the 630 respondents said their school or college would have to make financial savings either this academic year or in the near future as a result of cost pressures.

The respondents said they were considering reducing teaching staff and increasing class sizes (58%), reducing curriculum options (43%), reducing teaching assistant numbers (55%), and reducing other support staff numbers (68%) – 17 schools among the 630 said they are considering a four-day week.

Driven by rising energy costs, unfunded national pay awards, and rising catering costs, among other factors, the ASCL survey shows that some secondary schools are facing extra costs of up to £500,000 this year – the equivalent of employing 10 teachers.

However, the reality on the ground has been painted most vividly by the responses of the 630 school leaders when asked about the educational impact of the funding crisis.

“We will have to make staff redundant and not replace leaving staff. The impact on education of the pupils will be massive. We will also have to cut back on provisions around mental health and welfare.”

“Devastating. I have been here for 15 years and put my heart and soul into improving this school. It has been tough, but it has worked; this is now going to be thrown away. I have no option but to make significant redundancies across all areas of the school, from SLT to support staff. The impact will be a significant increase in class sizes, more work for the senior colleagues who will still be here and over time, the improvements which have been made will be eroded. I am completely disillusioned.”

“This is profound. I am looking at 15-20 job losses to cover these costs. I will need to make significant cuts in our teaching, wellbeing, mentoring, learning support, behaviour support, admin support or other staffing capacity. This will have a direct impact on our students.”

“Catastrophic. The scale of savings required in-year is unachievable. Our forecast budget, which was previously positive, is now dire. We would have to fundamentally change our offer to manage. The quality of education we will be able to provide will be substantially reduced.”

“Larger class sizes, more pressure on staff, less resources. This will impact the quality of education. All the plans I had for improving the learning environment, alternative curriculum development for our most vulnerable, will be significantly reduced or not go ahead at all.”

Geoff Barton, ASCL general secretary, said: “School leaders in this survey use words such as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’ to describe the financial situation they are facing and the impact on their pupils. It is clear that the future is bleak unless the government acts urgently.

“To make matters worse, we are concerned about the possibility of further public spending cuts being imposed in order to rescue the nation’s finances from the hole dug by the government. It should be clear to MPs of all parties that it is simply untenable to once again sacrifice schools and colleges on the altar of austerity, as happened in the wake of the last financial crisis.”

EPI chief executive Natalie Perera added: “Any government serious about social mobility, must avoid further real-terms cuts in per pupil spending and instead consider how additional resource can be most effectively targeted on the pupils who have fallen furthest behind.”

It all comes after 13 national education associations, including ASCL and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), wrote an open letter to Tory MPs setting out the stark reality of the school funding crisis and calling for action.

The letter coincides with the relaunch of the School Cuts website which is run by the National Education Union and supported by the likes of ASCL and NAHT. The website allows parents to inspect the specific impact of real-term funding cuts on their local school.

Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the NAHT, said that their own analysis shows that more than 90% of schools predict going into deficit next year.

He added: “The findings from this (ASCL) survey are alarming and very much mirror what we are hearing from our own members. More than 90% of schools we’ve spoken to are predicting they will be in deficit next year unless they make significant cuts that they know will detrimentally impact children’s education and wellbeing.

“The school funding crisis is impacting children and their life-chances directly, right now. The government has to understand the damage it is doing.”