On Friday 26th of October, Local teachers and head teachers will be taking action on stagnating pay and the continuing school funding crisis.
Activists will be meeting at 9am at the Orbital based office of Justin Tomlinson MP to raise awareness while Debbie Brown, Division secretary of Swindon National Education Union (NEU) meets with the North Swindon MP in an attempt to garner support for our financially struggling local schools.
The event is part of a national campaign supported by the NEU, National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and Association of School & College Leaders (ASCL) in which thousands of schools around the country, including dozens in Swindon have written to their local MPs urging action on school funding. At the event, activists will present Justin Tomlinson with a copy of the letter, signed by representatives of local education trade unions.
The School Teacher’s Pay Review Body (STPRB) recently recommended a 3.5% pay rise for all teachers to start to address years of below inflation pay awards and urged that the pay rise should be fully funded by central government. However, for the first time ever, the DfE has chosen to ignore the recommendation of the STPRB, instead opting to award the 3.5% pay rise to only 40% of teachers. The DfE has also announced that schools will be expected to fund the first 1% of the pay rise; a decision which will push many already stretched school budgets to breaking point.
The controversial decision by the DfE comes at a time when they are facing mounting pressure to come clean over the extent of the school funding crisis. Despite claiming that schools are receiving a ‘record amount of funding’, the DfE has faced strong criticism for counting private school fees and student loans as part of their spending. The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) watchdog is investigating the claims and has ‘serious concerns’ over ‘potentially misleading’ use of statistics by the DfE, having written to express concern on 4 separate occasions in the last year.
Debbie Brown, Secretary of Swindon NEU said ‘There is a growing consensus amongst parents and education workers that school budgets are at breaking point. Stagnating teacher pay has led to a recruitment and retention crisis and increasingly squeezed school budgets are resulting in redundancies, growing class sizes and a reduction in support, activities and interventions, especially for the most vulnerable pupils. We urge our local MPs to do all they can to support the children, parents and teachers in their constituencies in ensuring that our schools are properly funded.’
Pete Smith, Assistant Division Secretary of Swindon NEU said ‘Rather than spending their time concocting misleading figures which fool no-one, the DfE should focus on listening to parents and front-line staff who have been repeatedly telling them that there is a crisis in school funding. There is a growing consensus that our schools are not receiving adequate funding, and the DfE would be well advised to take seriously the concerns of parents and front line staff. They’re just not listening.’
The School Cuts campaign has used government figures to show that Swindon is facing a real terms cut to school funding of £3.1 million between 2015-2020.
The lobby is the latest in a series of events aimed at reversing chronic cuts to education funding, including the ‘floss for funding’ event on Oct 19th and a recent demonstration of up to 2000 head teachers in London.
