School funding in the age @NUTarea3

Edufacts – school funding Summary of Funding Cuts – for use in lobbying and sharing with members/school meetings/community/everyone! Summary of impact in Sixth Form Colleges Impact on school places

Slides ‘fair funding’ Slides 7-10 – The November spending review and the impact of cuts Slide 11 – School Teachers’ Pay Review Slide Sixth Form Colleges dispute (Demand for response from Nicky Morgan by midday 28 th Jan) Slide Context of cuts. Childhood poverty. Are the cuts necessary? Slide 20 – 23 Things to do

Barnsley – the place to be???  Has education been protected?  November 2015 Spending Review = real term cuts for all Local Authority areas with the possible exception of Barnsley  Cuts will range between 2% and 20%  The ‘fair funding’ argument powerful, but flawed

Calderdale… Current funding: £140,138, Funding under proposed formula: £142,534, Apparent gain: 1.9% Funding under proposed funding – adjusted for inflation: £131,559, Real terms cut in funding: 6.0% The table uses estimates for LA funding allocations under a new funding formula as published by the f40 group of local authorities and adjusts those allocations for the impact of inflation over the period using forecasts for average CPI inflation over that period as published in HM Treasury's "Forecasts for the UK Economy" (November 2015).

‘Fair funding’ NUT analysis ‘Fair Funding’ Proposals: New NUT Analysis 25 November 2015 NUT research published today shows that ‘fair funding’ proposals will not protect schools against cuts in funding – unless significant extra money is found. Every local authority in England – with the possible exception of Barnsley - will see real terms cuts ranging from 2.3% in the currently lowest funded authorities rising to more than 20% in some London boroughs.

Headlines from November spending review spending-review-2015-sixth-form-academies- uifsm-protection-goodbye-education-services- grant/ spending-review-2015-sixth-form-academies- uifsm-protection-goodbye-education-services- grant/ NUT press release

Consequences of cuts… Cuts in teaching posts – in 69% of secondary schools and 21% of primary schools. Cuts in classroom-related support staff posts – in 47% of primaries and 65% of secondaries. Higher class sizes – in 70% of secondaries and 45% of primaries. Cuts to SEN and EAL provision – in 56% of primaries and 52% of secondaries. Cuts in courses and curriculum areas – in 66% of secondaries and 23% of primaries. HLTAs used in place of qualified teachers – in 60% of primaries and 29% of secondaries. Cuts in budgets for books and materials – in 59% of primaries and 76% of secondaries. Cuts to maintenance budgets – in 40% of secondaries and 31% of primaries.

From Schools Week - Nov 15 books-say-heads/ books-say-heads/ Two thirds of school leaders claim they will not be able to balance their books in four years’ time, suggests a survey by the National Association of Head Teachers. The NAHT questioned more than 1,000 headteachers and found that 64 per cent are making “significant” cuts or dipping into reserves to stave off deficits.

NUT Education funding updates and overview – detailed termly updates

11 th January – Joint submission to STRB Teaching and school leadership unions join together today in a statement to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), warning the Government risks undermining teaching standards due to a real terms reduction in funding and the continued erosion of teachers’ pay.

Sixth form colleges Sixth Form College Funding 21 January 2016 The Conservative Government’s plans to freeze funding per student for the rest of this Parliament will result in further real terms cuts of 8% or more and further threats to teachers’ terms and conditions. This reduction comes on top of the 14% real terms cut in education since The National Union of Teachers has written to Nicky Morgan outlining our concerns about the impact that funding cuts to sixth form colleges will have on the sector, on the young people educated in sixth form colleges and on their teachers, including even bigger class sizes and longer hours worked, as well as failure to pay the modest 1% pay increase from September. NUT General Secretary, Christine Blower and Deputy General Secretary, Kevin Courtney, also met Sam Gyimah MP, Conservative minister responsible for education funding, yesterday (20 January), outlining the NUT's concerns and making it clear that teachers will have no alternative but to step up our campaign to protect this important sector unless funding is restored. Twitter

Sixth Form Colleges The indicative ballot of NUT members in sixth form colleges closes on Monday, 25 January. The National Executive will discuss the indicative ballot result at their meeting on 28 January and make decisions as to the next steps.

Childhood in the age of austerity 3.7 million children in poverty in the UK in That’s 28 per cent of children, or 9 in a classroom of 30.1 The number of children in relative poverty is forecast to rise from 2.6 million in 2009/10 to 2.9 million in 2015/16 and 3.3 million by 2020/21 (measuring income before housing costs) Relative child poverty will rise from 20 per cent currently to 24 per cent by 2020/21 - considerably higher than the 10 per cent target in the Child Poverty Act (2010) Proportion of children in absolute poverty is forecast to rise to 23 per cent by 2020/21, compared with the 5 per cent target

Poverty, teaching and learning Myth The most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers.’-- ‐ Michele Rhee in ‘Waiting for Superman’, 2011 Fact ‘The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.”– PISA 2012, vol.IV, 96. Research ‘Around 9% of variation in student achievement is due to teacher characteristics. About 60% of variation is explainable by individual student characteristics, family characteristics, and such [social] variables. All school input combined account for approximately 21% of student outcomes’ – Goldhaber et al, 2010

A necessary evil???

One-quarter of UK government debt is owed to the UK government

UK government interest rate Interest rate The UK government can currently borrow for: 2 years at 0.5% 5 years at 1.2% 10 years at 1.8% 30 years at 2.6%

Re-writing a fairer future… If cuts in funding are so detrimental to teachers and students, yet are the result of political choice rather than economic necessity – how is it possible to make our voice heard within the profession, wider community, and with politicians ?

Stand up for Education Ideological Political Professional International National Local/School Allies

Question we need to answer… Do we prioritise the causes or consequences of cuts?? Who are our allies: parents, Heads, Governors??? Where are the pressure points: in schools? In communities? In council? In Parliament? Timeframe of campaign

Further Lobbies of MPs? Links with local councillors? Stand up for education event? Include whole community. Links to local groups - People’s Assembly? Discuss the cuts with members and come to next Division meeting with ideas about how to share this information as widely as possible