> “…raising fears of growing gap between rich and poor areas”
You’re about 40 years too late, Guardian.
How much does the uniform cost? Oh well I guess parents have no money left over.
Meanwhile billions on a funeral and no windfall taxes, fracking in the time of climate crises, hey at least our kids will be too uneducated to know better.
Do schools realise that normal people can’t afford to help with funding? They are more skint than a school, need every extra bit of cash to pay for the next hike in energy bills.
Sadly this has been thin end of the wedge for quite a while. Both of my children’s schools have ‘school funds’ that they ask (but not compel) parents to donate to each year.
Originally it was for ‘extra’ trips and stuff, but they definitely have moved to paying for more fundamental things in recent years (like stationary!)
This is only going to get worse; but with the inflation rate and poor salary increases they won’t see any ‘voluntary’ money again.
I don’t want to be ‘the sky is falling’ but this is definitely a big problem brewing. Get ready for even larger classes and fewer teachers
Its articles like this that make me want to emigrate to a functioning country. 🥹
This has all come about due to government policy absolving themselves of responsibility. It started with Grant Maintained schools in the 80s and Academies have made everything significantly worse.
By individually funding schools you lose economies of scale and cooperation between schools. By making them academies you turn them into businesses, actively competing with each other. Now we’re in the situation where the government says “You’ve had all the money you’re getting from us”.
Schools aren’t businesses. Head teachers aren’t CEOs. The government has a responsibility to provide education, not just give funding to schools.
Think they are a little late to be begging the parents for money. In the choice of:
Heating vs Eating vs School Textbooks
Not exactly a contest. The real problem is that the Tories have defunded the councils for years. If only there was a way to get more money for important things from people who could easily afford it, instead of asking the same poor people to pay for everything….they could call it taxation, and aim it at the richest people and companies in the land.
Make no mistake- the money is all there, it’s just in the pockets of the conservatives
If we’re going to have to fork out various sums for state schools, we may as well send our children to private school.
It completely defeats the purpose of a state funded education if we’re bailing them out.
Ahem…
<checks last year’s P60>
I paid a lot of taxes for this already. Where’s that money gone, Mr Kwarteng?
PTAs can’t hand over cash for core services without being at risk of breaching their constitution and Charity rules. As trustees of a charity the PTA chair/other named members are putting themselves at risk if they agree to this.
Schools operate on razor-thin margins. It is why things like teaching assistants and extracurriclar activities have slowly disappeared over the years: they cost money but are easy to cut. It is also why arts subjects and DT are on the curriculum to a much smaller extent than when I was at school in the 90s and 00s. Schools just cannot afford the raw materials and so the subjects are cut down to the bare bones to meet national standards as easily as possible. It is just going to get worse as teachers’ salaries increase too. That needs to happen but schools just do not have the budget for that anymore, they need bailing out but the government would never even consider that as an option.
Or they could, IDK, vote the Tories out. That would help too.
Teachers pay for children’s food, pay for class equipment, pay for resources for lessons, pay for basic stationary – work hours of unpaid overtime everyweek. Get briefed against by ministers in rags like the Daily Mail as being “workshy” etc during the pandemic and more recently greedy for rejecting 9% payrises (blatant misrepresentation of the negotiation).
When is the education sector (workforce) going to grow a backbone and expose the situation rather than allowing these ridiculous plasters to be applied “for the good of the kids”.
15 comments
> “…raising fears of growing gap between rich and poor areas”
You’re about 40 years too late, Guardian.
How much does the uniform cost? Oh well I guess parents have no money left over.
Meanwhile billions on a funeral and no windfall taxes, fracking in the time of climate crises, hey at least our kids will be too uneducated to know better.
Do schools realise that normal people can’t afford to help with funding? They are more skint than a school, need every extra bit of cash to pay for the next hike in energy bills.
Sadly this has been thin end of the wedge for quite a while. Both of my children’s schools have ‘school funds’ that they ask (but not compel) parents to donate to each year.
Originally it was for ‘extra’ trips and stuff, but they definitely have moved to paying for more fundamental things in recent years (like stationary!)
This is only going to get worse; but with the inflation rate and poor salary increases they won’t see any ‘voluntary’ money again.
I don’t want to be ‘the sky is falling’ but this is definitely a big problem brewing. Get ready for even larger classes and fewer teachers
Its articles like this that make me want to emigrate to a functioning country. 🥹
This has all come about due to government policy absolving themselves of responsibility. It started with Grant Maintained schools in the 80s and Academies have made everything significantly worse.
By individually funding schools you lose economies of scale and cooperation between schools. By making them academies you turn them into businesses, actively competing with each other. Now we’re in the situation where the government says “You’ve had all the money you’re getting from us”.
Schools aren’t businesses. Head teachers aren’t CEOs. The government has a responsibility to provide education, not just give funding to schools.
Think they are a little late to be begging the parents for money. In the choice of:
Heating vs Eating vs School Textbooks
Not exactly a contest. The real problem is that the Tories have defunded the councils for years. If only there was a way to get more money for important things from people who could easily afford it, instead of asking the same poor people to pay for everything….they could call it taxation, and aim it at the richest people and companies in the land.
Make no mistake- the money is all there, it’s just in the pockets of the conservatives
If we’re going to have to fork out various sums for state schools, we may as well send our children to private school.
It completely defeats the purpose of a state funded education if we’re bailing them out.
Ahem…
<checks last year’s P60>
I paid a lot of taxes for this already. Where’s that money gone, Mr Kwarteng?
PTAs can’t hand over cash for core services without being at risk of breaching their constitution and Charity rules. As trustees of a charity the PTA chair/other named members are putting themselves at risk if they agree to this.
Schools operate on razor-thin margins. It is why things like teaching assistants and extracurriclar activities have slowly disappeared over the years: they cost money but are easy to cut. It is also why arts subjects and DT are on the curriculum to a much smaller extent than when I was at school in the 90s and 00s. Schools just cannot afford the raw materials and so the subjects are cut down to the bare bones to meet national standards as easily as possible. It is just going to get worse as teachers’ salaries increase too. That needs to happen but schools just do not have the budget for that anymore, they need bailing out but the government would never even consider that as an option.
Or they could, IDK, vote the Tories out. That would help too.
Teachers pay for children’s food, pay for class equipment, pay for resources for lessons, pay for basic stationary – work hours of unpaid overtime everyweek. Get briefed against by ministers in rags like the Daily Mail as being “workshy” etc during the pandemic and more recently greedy for rejecting 9% payrises (blatant misrepresentation of the negotiation).
When is the education sector (workforce) going to grow a backbone and expose the situation rather than allowing these ridiculous plasters to be applied “for the good of the kids”.
Enough is enough.