The findings of a YouGov poll involving almost 800 teachers have been released by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) as part of its on-going campaign against the cuts to school funding.
Meanwhile, a separate YouGov poll, also commissioned by the NUT, found that 43 per cent of parents say that education and school funding will be a key issue when they decide who to vote for in today’s General Election (Thursday, June 8).
In fact, only the health system and Brexit were considered more important election issues, according to the results of the poll.
Involving more than 1,000 parents with school-aged children, the study found that around 80 per cent of the parents have been approached by their school with requests for donations or additional funding for school equipment.
England’s schools are facing real-terms budget cuts of £3 billion by 2019/20 because of rising costs including pension contributions and National Insurance and also notably rising pupil numbers.
The YouGov polls were commissioned by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), one of the unions behind the School Cuts campaign. The campaign website analyses the impact of the predicted real-terms funding cuts on schools as well as the changes proposed under the Conservative’s new National Funding Formula.
The analysis shows that schools face a real-terms cut in per-pupil funding averaging £470 by 2020 (£554 in secondaries). In the teacher poll, a third of the teachers also said that the number of teaching posts in their school had been cut in the last two years, while two-thirds said the number of teaching assistants had been reduced.