budget cuts | Schools Week

More heads cut school trips amid funding crisis

Sutton Trust research finds steep rises in schools cutting back on teaching assistants and IT equipment

School aims to cut energy costs with Christmas single

A song recorded by pupils at Barn Croft Primary School in east London has already raised £26,000 towards solar panels

Schools need more money or they’ll have to start cutting staff

Schools are increasingly forced to live beyond the meagre means the government gives them, a situation that can’t last according to the EPI’s Jon Andrews Ten years ago, I was working in the Department for Children, Schools and Families on school efficiency. Amongst other things, I was tasked with developing guidance for local authorities on […]

‘The Parent Pound’ – Should schools ask parents for donations to cover squeezed budgets?

As one school consults parents on regular cash contributions to boost its ailing coffers, editor Laura McInerney considers the implications Schools are facing a grim financial situation. Planned increases in pensions and national insurance are rocketing staff costs, which are already around 80 per cent of what school budgets are spent on. Heads only […]

Forget (most of) your post-election blues

Funding cuts, a recruitment crisis . . . what is there to be happy about? Well, the quality of the profession and the initial signals the government is sending about how it will work with it So, the job of steering the school system through its most difficult challenges for a generation falls to Nicky […]

The reality of school funding cuts

We may know who will govern the country for the next five years, but the detail of education funding under a Conservative administration remains opaque David Cameron has called for greater efficiency and lean management in public bodies, a call that signals a strong intent to make further cuts to public services. In their pre-election […]

Let’s take a deep breath and make changes

A Conservative government with Nicky Morgan as secretary of state gives some chance of stability to allow schools to implement changes already in the pipeline In the National Governors’ Association (NGA) manifesto published a year ago we called for a period of stability, the most called-for request by our members – governors and trustees across […]

Thoughts from after the election

The Conservatives have a clear majority. So what is the reality for school leaders, governors and teachers? Many of us will remember the 1997 election and the glow of Tony Blair’s campaign mantra: education, education, education! We recall, too, the excellent, school-sympathetic secretaries of state for education under Labour – Blunkett, Morris, Johnson, even Balls […]

‘If I were education secretary (again)…’

Money is not the sole salvation in achieving quality education for all children. However, cutting the money available can have a devastating impact on those schools that have been making the most progress, reaching out and engaging with families and for whom the pupil premium was a lifeline at a time of retrenchment. That is […]