By 2020, 92% of English primary and secondary schools will see their budgets slashed.
Ninety two percent. Just let that sink in for a minute.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) have put together School Cuts – a website showing the true extent of the Tories’ planned massacre of children’s education. You can search for schools in your area to find out just how much they will be affected – and, let me tell you, it is simply shocking.
Schools will be losing out on £2.5 billion a year by 2020, with the average secondary school losing over £290,000 a year in budget cuts. On average, £401 will be lost per primary school student and £365 per secondary school student.
But these are averages. Just stats. Search for your children’s school, your old school, and find out how much schools in your area will be affected with School Cuts’ search…
Let’s take my old secondary school for example – it’s an average school, the only one in town, with just shy of 1400 pupils. According to School Cuts, my old school will lose £201,434 by 2020 – that’s £144 per pupil.
This is a time to be investing in the future, and improving education standards sounds like a damn good investment to me – producing smart and well-rounded adults will obviously benefit society. But how can schools cope with less money and less funding? How can they possibly ensure that every single child has the ability to thrive?
And guess what goes hand-in-hand with budget cuts? Yep, you guessed it – redundancies. School support staff such as teaching assistants will be seen as a luxury they simply cannot afford, leaving struggling students in their wake. Schools will also be forced to sack teachers to keep within their new budgets – focusing on my school, again, this will mean the loss of 5 teachers.
Fewer teachers mean bigger classroom sizes, already stressed-out teachers becoming more stressed, more paperwork, less time being spent with each pupil and, obviously, education standards will go down. The whole thing is a recipe for a disaster – the education system is already in shambles, but the Tories aren’t content with this. They need to destroy it further until it’s nothing but skin and bone.
It was reported last week that 30% of teachers who qualified in 2010 quit within 5 years – surely logic dictates that the government must do more to keep the teachers we already have, whilst also encouraging more people to go in to teaching? It’s hardly inspiring anyone to enter the profession knowing you’ll be over-worked with little pay – and you may not even have a job by 2020!
Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or a godparent – you want the children in your life to have the best chances in life. You want them to succeed and be happy and not suffer in a mediocre school that is trying to gasp it’s last breath as the Conservatives slowly squeeze their sweaty hands around its neck.
This is something worth getting angry about. We cannot let them destroy our education system.
Get Involved
If you care about good education, here are some things you can do to ensure your voice is heard:
Email your MP and ask them to oppose the planned budget cuts: https://www.writetothem.com/
Sign the petition against the cuts.
