Category Archives: School funding

Children’s development ‘put back by years’ due to failure of special educational needs system

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Local government ombudsman report into SEND in England offers damning assessment

England’s special education system is failing, causing thousands of children to have their development put back by months or even years, according to a damning report by the local government ombudsman.

Amerdeep Somal, the local government and social care ombudsman, said her caseload was now dominated by complaints from families involving special educational needs (Sen) provision and schools, with more than 90% of complaints being upheld.

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Special educational needs bill in England hits record £10bn a year

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National Audit Office report finds no signs of improvement in lives of pupils despite record spending

The bill for special needs education in England has hit £10bn a year, with the number of children and young people entitled to government support in the form of education, health and care plans set to double to 1 million within a decade, a landmark report has found.

The investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that despite record levels of spending there had been no signs of improvement in the lives of children with special educational needs (SEN).

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Doubts grow over Labour’s VAT plan for private schools

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The Treasury refuses to confirm 1 January start date as unions, tax experts and school leaders say it is unworkable

Government plans to impose VAT on private schools from 1 January next year may have to be delayed because of warnings from unions, tax experts and school leaders that meeting the deadline will cause administrative chaos and teacher job losses, and put pressure on the state sector.

The Treasury on Saturday night refused to confirm that the plan to impose 20% VAT on private school fees would go ahead from 1 January, as confirmed by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in July, instead saying it would be introduced “as soon as possible”.

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Eight in 10 primary teachers in England spending own money to help pupils

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Increasing numbers of children hungry and lack adequate clothing, with two-thirds of secondary teachers also supporting pupils

Eight in 10 primary schoolteachers in England are spending their own money to buy items for pupils who are increasingly arriving at school hungry and without adequate clothing, according to new research.

Almost a third (31%) of those who took part in the survey said they were seeing more hungry children in class, with 40% reporting an increase in pupils coming in without proper uniform or a warm winter coat, research by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found.

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English pupil funding at same level as when Tories took power, study finds

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Real-terms funding per pupil at 2010 levels, teacher pay at 2001 levels, and building investment 25% below mid-2000s

Spending on each schoolchild’s education in England has suffered an unprecedented 14-year-freeze since the Conservatives came to power, according to Britain’s leading economics thinktank.

Funding per pupil is now at 2010 levels in real terms, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in its latest analysis of school spending, while teacher pay was at about the same real-terms level as in 2001.

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Teachers in England stretched by pupils’ mental and family problems, MPs say

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Education select committee concerned that excessive workload is driving teachers out of profession

Teachers’ workloads are being increasingly stretched by their pupils’ mental health and family difficulties, according to MPs who were critical of the government’s efforts to tackle chronic staff shortages in England’s schools.

The education select committee said it was “concerned that since the pandemic teachers are spending more time on addressing issues that would typically fall outside the remit of schools, including family conflict resolution and mental health support,” and called for the government to support better provision inside and outside schools.

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Cold, damp, unsafe: record number of UK schools refused funding for repairs

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DfE allocates £450m to 826 building projects at 733 schools, a fall of almost 60% – in terms of total projects – compared with 2020-21

A record number of schools have had bids for building repairs turned down by the government, with experts warning that buckets on desks, freezing classrooms and power cuts are all becoming commonplace.

The Department for Education (DfE) announced on Tuesday that it had allocated £450m to 826 building repair projects at 733 schools through its annual condition improvement fund (CIF), which is designed to help academies and small academy trusts keep buildings “safe and in good working order”. But this is a fall of nearly 60% – in terms of total projects – compared with 2020-21, when the government awarded £563m to 2,104 repair projects.

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‘Daylight robbery’: two in five UK teachers work 26 hours for free each week

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TUC survey finds teaching staff perform the most unpaid overtime of any profession, losing out on £15,000 a year each

Teaching unions have accused ministers of “daylight robbery” after a new survey by the Trades Union Congress revealed that teachers perform the most unpaid overtime of any profession.

The TUC survey – published to mark its Work Your Proper Hours Day on Friday – found that two out of five teaching staff in the UK worked 26 hours for free each week, for a combined 5.5m hours a year.

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‘Deliberate lie’: education lobby group says ‘landmark’ school agreement falls short of 100% funding

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Federal and WA state governments’ public school funding deal dismissed as ‘not good enough’ by Australian Education Union

Education experts say a “landmark” deal to fully fund Western Australia’s public schools by 2026 is “not good enough” and still lets the state government “off the hook”.

The “statement of intent”, announced on Wednesday by education minister, Jason Clare, would increase funding for Western Australian public schools by $1.6bn over the next five years, with $770m coming from the commonwealth.

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Loose language leaves Labour accused of flip-flop on private schools

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Shadow ministers used ‘charitable status’ as shorthand for main goal of introducing tax changes

Has Labour flip-flopped on stripping private schools in England of their charitable status? Senior party figures from Keir Starmer down have certainly been guilty of using loose language, conflating such a move with their plan to apply VAT to private school fees and other tax breaks.

Starmer said in July last year: “When I say we are going to pay for kids to catch up at school, I also say it’ll be funded by removing private schools’ charitable status.”

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Revealed: covert deal to cut help for pupils in England with special needs

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Government contract aims to reduce the number of specialist care plans by a fifth

The government has quietly signed a contract targeting 20% cuts to the number of new education plans for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) to bring down costs, the Observer can reveal.

Then junior education minister Claire Coutinho – recently promoted to the cabinet as energy secretary– subsequently told MPs that no targets were in place.

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More English schools could close due to crumbling concrete, minister warns

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Nick Gibb says buildings continue to be surveyed for risk of collapse after over 100 were told to shut

The schools minister has warned more schools in England could face closure after more than 100 were told to shut just days before term starts for thousands of pupils.

The government has refused to publicly reveal the 104 education facilities that have been told to shut buildings due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), a material at risk of collapse.

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Striking teachers in England accused of undermining pupils’ pandemic recovery

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Gillian Keegan says she ‘can’t think of a worse time’ for action by NEU members

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has accused striking teachers of undermining children’s recovery from the Covid pandemic, saying she did “pretty well” at winning extra funding for schools from the Treasury.

Keegan told a conference in Bournemouth: “Let me be clear, we should not be having these strikes in general, but certainly not now. Children have been through so much in the pandemic and I can’t think of a worse time to be willingly keeping them out of school.”

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Labour considering graduate-led nurseries to fight inequality

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Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson says early-years education key to improving life chances

More graduate teachers would be parachuted into nurseries under plans being considered by Labour to improve education for under-fours, the Guardian has learned.

There could also be more nursery places in primary school settings as the opposition works up proposals to drive up standards and formally integrate early years into the English education system.

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One in three young teachers in England skipping meals to make ends meet

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NEU survey also finds one in five teachers aged 29 or under have taken on a second job as pay fails to keep up with cost of living

One in three young teachers in England are skipping meals and spending less on food because their pay has failed to keep up with the rising cost of living, while others are taking second jobs, a survey has found.

More than 8,000 state school teachers in England contacted by the National Education Union revealed that 34% of teachers aged 29 or younger said they have been forced to skip meals to make ends meet, with one in five saying they have taken on a second job in addition to teaching full-time.

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Labour pledges to overhaul England’s school ratings with ‘report card’

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Shadow education secretary to announce policy aimed at giving parents more information than Ofsted’s current system

School ratings such as outstanding and inadequate would be scrapped in England under a Labour government and replaced with a “report card” aimed at helping parents, the shadow education secretary is to announce.

Bridget Phillipson will tell a headteachers’ conference in Birmingham on Saturday that Ofsted’s current system of ratings “is high stakes for staff but low information for parents” because it fails to convey important details about a school’s strengths and weaknesses.

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Services in England for children with special needs to be ‘transformed’

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Government’s long-awaited plan promises thousands more specialist school places and new national standards

Services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England are to be “transformed”, with the introduction of new national standards and thousands more specialist school places, ministers have announced.

The long-awaited changes are being introduced to end the postcode lottery that families currently face and ensure that children and young people with Send get “high-quality, early support” wherever they live, the government says.

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Gillian Keegan says teachers don’t need to threaten strikes

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Education secretary says she looks forward to ‘de-escalation’ as unions in England ballot over industrial action

The education secretary has made a veiled plea for teachers in England to “de-escalate” and avoid industrial action, arguing that progress can be made on pay and other concerns without the threat of “harmful” strikes.

All four major teaching unions in England are balloting their members on possible strike action over pay, with the National Education Union and NASUWT saying that the pay rise given in September – about 5% on average – is inadequate given rampant inflation and the cost of living crisis.

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Art, drama, languages and geography to become ‘preserve of private schools’ as state sector cuts bite

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Subjects that attract fewer pupils at GCSE and A-level are in danger of being axed from English state schools

Subjects including German, French, art, drama and design technology could soon be shut off to many state school students as heads say they are being forced into cutting expensive and less popular lessons to address crippling deficits.

The vast majority of English state schools expect to be in the red by the next school year, pushed under by enormous energy bills and an unfunded pay rise for teachers.

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Thousands of English schools in grip of funding crisis plan redundancies

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‘Unprecedented’ deficits will force heads to make ‘catastrophic’ cuts and reduce support for vulnerable pupils, NAHT warns

Thousands of schools in England are drawing up plans to make staff redundant in the face of a crippling funding crisis, and in many cases will also have to cut mental health support and Covid catch-up tuition, according to findings from one of the largest surveys of school leaders in recent times.

Two-thirds (66%) of the 11,000 school leaders who took part in the poll by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said they will have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours, while half (50%) are looking at cutting the number of teachers or teaching hours as they grapple with rising costs.

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