Many schools in England are considering cutting teachers or teaching hours to save money, school leaders’ union NAHT says.
Of the 11,000 respondents to NAHT’s Snapshot survey, 66% said they need to lay off teaching assistants or reduce their hours. Half say they could do the same for teachers.
Funding for schools is increasing, but costs such as wages and energy are rising fast.
The Ministry of Education has not yet commented.
Ahead of the government’s autumn statement next week, which is expected to bring sweeping cuts in public funds, NAHT has asked principals and other senior school staff how to manage their budgets.
The 11,000 answers give a good overview of the decisions they are making this school year.
More than half of respondents (54%) said they would not be able to balance their budgets without spending cuts.
Many also warned that they must reduce support for children, e.g. B. Counseling for mental health problems, or additional help for individual students.
- Teachers one step closer to a strike
- School trips could be canceled to retain staff
- Huge leap in children in mental health crises
Claire Evans, headteacher at Eaton Valley Primary in West Bromwich, said her school must shoulder “unsustainable” price increases to avoid passing those costs on to parents.
Most of a school’s budget goes towards salaries, so the 5% pay rise most teachers in England received in September had a major impact on finances.
For Eaton Valley, it has added £90,000 to the annual bill for staff costs, which it expects to raise from its existing budget.
Other costs are skyrocketing too. A bus for a reception-class trip to a farm has risen from £870 to £1,070 and basic necessities such as exercise books have risen from 54p to 65p each.
The school’s caterers say they will be charging £18,000 more for their services from April, increasing the cost per meal from £2.30 to £2.87.
“When you add that to the increase in milk, the increase in paper, the increase in the cost of school trips and the pay rise for all teachers and teaching assistants, it becomes unsustainable going forward,” Ms Evans told the BBC.
Eaton Valley is better positioned than many other schools with a fixed energy contract, so there are no plans to lay off teachers.
However, to save money, it has chosen not to replace the departing teaching assistants. Spending on children’s educational materials will be cut by £45,000 this year.
Independent economists at the Institute for Fiscal Studies say that after nearly a decade of declining spending per student from 2010 to 2019, school budgets have started to increase in cash terms, but costs are rising at a faster rate.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said the schools had “already made all the simple savings”.
“The only things that still need to be cut are things that directly affect children – and especially those who are already most disadvantaged and vulnerable,” he said, adding that the government is taking “urgent action”. needed to increase spending on education.
Some schools have already told the BBC they may have to cut school trips and music classes to avoid downsizing as they struggle to pay teachers their 5% pay rise.
Teachers are considering a strike over pay rises that education unions say are well below inflation.
The Department for Education has previously said that the pay rises are the “highest pay premium for teachers in a generation” and that the average salary for teachers in November 2021 – the latest data available – was £42,360.
Add Comment