The School Cuts Coalition’s updated interactive map of England’s schools reveals that under the new cash allocation figures, published by the Department for Education on Friday, 83 per cent of schools will receive less money per pupil than they did four years ago.
This is despite an extra £14 million being allocated to schools, which the Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed would help ‘level up school funding.’
On average, schools will see a cut to funding of £245 per primary pupil, rising to £304 for a secondary pupil.
The coalition, made up of the six teaching unions, compared figures from the Schools Block allocations for 2015-16 to 2018-19 and the National Funding Formula indicative allocations for 2019-20 and 2020-21.
According to the map, the extra funding largely goes to schools that serve the most affluent communities. The analysis has found that primary schools serving the most deprived intakes will lose an average of £382 a year per pupil. This compares to a cut of £125 a year per pupil in primary schools with the least deprived children.
There is also ‘significant’ regional variation, with London the worst hit. The South East and South West will see the smallest cuts to funding.
The coalition called the cuts to schools as 'deeply unfair'
Individual schools can see how they will be affected by the new cash allocation by inputting their postcode.
Early Years
Further analysis by the coalition on early years warns that maintained nursery schools are at ‘serious risk’, if the Government does not commit to continuing additional funding beyond August 2020. There has been no announcement about funding for the 392 nursery schools.
It also shows the gap in funding for early years settings, looking at the total amount allocated by the Government for funded three- and four-year-old places against the actual cost of delivery.
The coalition argues that the additional funding increase of £66m for early years is insufficient because costs are rising faster than inflation due to the number of staff on the national living wage and due to the freeze in funding since 2017. It warns that for primary schools with early years classes, without increases to hourly rates, their expenditure may exceed their income.
Comments
Jon Richards, head of education at Unison, said, ‘The overwhelming majority of schools are now significantly poorer. New funds promised won’t make up for money snatched from them in the past. Everyday cash-strapped schools are having to let valued support staff go. The Government’s school funding agency won’t bail out overspent academies unless they slash their staff costs. With schools so hard up, classrooms across the country are feeling the squeeze.’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said, ‘It is very clear that there will still be winners and losers. One in three schools will only receive an increase of around 1.8 per cent in their overall funding, which is still a real-terms cut. This shows that it will take a lot more than the Government is currently offering in order to properly restore the funding that’s been lost over the past several years. Children and their families have seen class sizes soar, teaching assistants laid off, subjects dropped, resources diminish, and in many cases witness their school fall into disrepair, all because the ever-reducing budgets make it harder and harder to make ends meet.’
Responding to the figures, the Department for Education (DfE)said that under the new funding allocations, areas with high proportions of students from a disadvantaged background will continue to receive the highest levels of funding.
The DfE also said, it is ‘resetting the National Funding Formula to provide enough for every school’s per pupil funding to rise in real-terms. Every secondary school will receive a minimum of £5,000 per pupil next year and every primary school will receive a minimum of £3,750 next year, rising to at least £4,000 from 2021-22.
It added that it is ‘investing £2.4 billion this year through the Pupil Premium to help the most disadvantaged children.’
