Another chaotic week in politics has left key school reforms in limbo and heads fearing fresh budget cuts, with leaders condemning the latest “omnishambles”.
The Conservative party will hold a rapid week-long leadership contest after Liz Truss stood down yesterday after 44 days in office. A new prime minister will be announced by next Friday, the third in two months.
It plunges schools, again, into a period of uncertainty – in a week that provided another sobering reminder of just how desparate the situation already is.
Monday: Austerity 2.0 on the way
Jeremy Hunt, freshly anointed chancellor following the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng, signalled a new era of austerity.
Announcing several U-turns on Truss’s original tax-slashing mini-budget, he said “some areas of spending will need to be cut”.
Instead of additional funding, Hunt warned this week that “all departments will need to redouble their efforts to find savings, and some areas of spending will need to be cut”.
He denied the government was planning austerity on the “scale” of 2010, and said it was “likely that cash spending will continue to go up”. But it was still “going to be tough”.
It follows reports over the weekend that government departments were due to be asked to find savings of between 10 and 15 per cent of their capital budgets, and 2 per cent savings in revenue budgets. However, this was before Kwarteng was sacked.
A 2 per cent resource cut would slash the DfE’s total budget by £1.8 billion. A 2 per cent cut to the core schools budget as it stood in 2021-22 would equal £996 million, or the equivalent of more than 18,000 teachers.
A 15 per cent capital cut to the DfE’s budget would amount to about £840 million.
Unions have also called for urgent clarification on energy cost support for schools after April.
Hunt wants to “design a new approach that will cost the taxpayer significantly less than planned, whilst ensuring enough support for those in need.
“Any support for businesses will be targeted to those most affected. And the new approach will better incentivise energy efficiency.”
Tuesday: Heads consider strikes
Heads’ union NAHT announced its first ever national strike ballot over pay in its 125-year history. NASUWT teaching union has also announced a formal ballots of members.
The National Education Union has said strikes over pay and funding are “likely” to take place from the end of January next year if approved in a national ballot of its members.
All three unions have criticised government pay proposals which equate to a 5 per cent rise for the majority of teachers and leaders.
Joint NEU general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary Bousted said the latest financial statement from the chancellor “will do nothing to quell the anger of teachers and support staff as they face yet another real-terms pay cut”.
The landmark evaluation of the early National Tutoring Programme also revealed on Tuesday it “failed” in its aim to help disadvantaged pupils.
Wednesday: Academy reforms limbo
In a further sign of turmoil, the government’s once-flagship schools bill was due to be scrapped this week.
Officials and ministers were working on a last-ditch plan to save its most important elements to bring back as smaller pieces of legislation next year.
This included academy intervention powers, a register of children not in school and new levers to clamp down on illegal schools.
But the Truss resignation on Thursday has now thrown that into limbo again, with any decision presumably now waiting for a new prime minister.
Alice Gregson, executive director of Forum Strategy, a membership organisation for academy trust leaders said the schools bill in its current form “was always going to struggle to become a reality”.
“Some key provisions missed the point of why the trust sector was set up in the first place – freedom for the profession to set strategy direction and not be subject to the whims of the latest politicians.
“There needs to be a much better approach to consulting and involving the academy trust sector in policy making in future, the sector was badly let down on this occasion.”
Thursday: Biggest attainment gap in decade
Hours before Truss’s resignation, provisional school-level GCSE results data confirmed again that the Covid pandemic has exacerbated inequalities between poorer pupils and their better-off peers.
The attainment gap at both primary and secondary level is now the widest in a decade.
Nick Brook, the deputy general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “As the government once again turns inward to decide who will become November’s prime minister, school leaders are looking outward at an ever-worsening situation on the ground.
“The attainment gap between rich and poor stands at a ten-year high, recruitment of new teachers is heading for a ten-year low; costs are spiralling and morale is plummeting. What a complete omnishambles.”
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the school leaders’ union ASCL, said “significant investment in a coherent plan for education recovery” was needed to close the attainment gap.
“Instead, it seems likely that the government is going to reduce spending on education even further. If that is the case, our children and young people, who made enormous sacrifices during the pandemic to protect others, will be disadvantaged yet again.”
Friday: Where is Kit Malthouse?
A new prime minister means a likely reshuffle. If a new education secretary was appointed, that would be the fifth in five months.
But would schools even notice? Current education secretary Kit Malthouse has been mostly silent, apart from a tweet last Friday backing Truss to get the country “through this storm… Tough times don’t last, tough people do.”
However he did today like a tweet by Michaela school headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh celebrating its GCSE results. The school’s progress 8 score of 2.27 is the highest in the country.
But no word on what else the government will do to help solve any of the mounting problems.
This includes our investigation today that shows that as many as half of all the maintained schools in some areas are expected to go into financial deficit this year.
Jonathan Gullis, schools minister, even said on Thursday that “young people are getting back on track”.
He said attainment data shows “why it is so important we keep our foot on the accelerator and continue to roll out” of its education recovery programme.
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