Heads urge parents to back call on funding - The Worcester Observer

Heads urge parents to back call on funding

Worcester Editorial 19th Sep, 2018   0

A FRUSTRATED city headteacher has revealed the ‘desperate’ financial situation his and many other county secondary schools are in and asked parents to back a campaign to ensure better funding for Worcestershire pupils.

Christopher Whitehead Language College headteacher Neil Morris spoke out and said funding per pupil had fallen by eight per cent in the past eight years, despite Government claims funding for education is at its highest level since 2010.

The Worth Less national campaign is being led on a local level by neighbouring Droitwich Spa High School headteacher Natalie Waters and many of the county’s headteachers will make the trip to London next Friday (September 28) to lobby their MPs for a fairer deal.

In a letter to 1,475 parents and carers, Mr Morris joined with his fellow school chiefs to warn parents they cannot prevent another year of belt tightening from affecting secondary school children with larger classes, few study options and less support for the most vulnerable all now on the timetable.




The letter does recognise a new method for allocating government money across the country has been a step towards a fairer system. However the headteachers insist say the gap between schools in Worcestershire and those over the border in south Birmingham is still far too wide.

While he accepted the new National Funding Formula was a ‘step in the right direction’, a child in the West Midlands was substantially better funded than one of a similar age over the border in Worcestershire.


“The current Government has claimed there is more money in schools, they’re correct. But they have taken funding away in other grants,” he told the Observer.

“The Education Services Grant has been reduced from £153,000 in 2014/15 to zero. This has not been replaced with other funding.

“We’re told to have a senior teacher who is in charge of mental health in our school, yet the Educational Services Grant has been cut. That’s ridiculous because that’s where you get the money for your psychcologists, counsellors, bespoke courses which address the needs of children,” he added.

The long-serving headteacher highlighted the Institute of Fiscal Studies report which said the increase in education funding introduced under the National Fairer Funding formula was linked to rising pupil numbers and had actually fallen in real terms since 2010.

A recent OECD report also found England’s teachers had suffered the world’s second biggest pay cut with only teachers in crisis-ridden Greece worse off.

“You can see the chronic state the health service is in but I don’t think people realise what a desperate situation Worcestershire schools are in,” Mr Morris said.

“We have opened a sixth form but because sixth form funding isn’t included in the new formula we get less funding for that than for an 11-year-old, that cannot be right.

“We are getting very mixed messages at the moment. It’s a difficult time to be a headteacher and l very strongly Worcester has some superb schools but I am one of 34 across the county saying this cannot continue.

“I’m painting classrooms, the teachers are painting their own classrooms, we are trying to get money in any way possible. I’m part social worker, part litter picker, part caretaker and every now and then I get to be a headteacher,” he added.

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