For many years, Devon has been one of the lowest-funded
education authorities in England. In
2016/17 this resulted in a shortfall of £290 per pupil when
compared to the national average. There
are, of course, also many schools in areas which are funded at much
higher levels than the national
average and who therefore receive considerably more than this.
However, the difference in funding
for us means that we receive a budget that is £102,376 less
than the average across the UK for
2016/17. This significant funding shortfall has been, and will
continue to be, detrimental to the
quality and range of education provision for children at all Devon
schools, including Willand.
As one of the lowest funded local authorities, Devon has been
campaigning for a number of years for
a fairer funding settlement which would bring the money allocated
to Devon children closer to or
even in line with the national average. As a result of the
campaigning by Devon and other low
funded authorities, the government committed to creating a national
fairer funding formula in this
parliament.
Just before Christmas, the DfE announced the Stage 2 Consultation
of this promised national funding
formula for schools. We had hoped that this announcement would
bring about a readjustment in
funding that would benefit Willand School, given our historic
underfunding. However, we were
shocked and dismayed to find out that the result of this for
Willand is a 2.5% decrease in our funding
by 2019/20. This means our budget will be reduced by £32,000,
purely as a result of this change to
the funding formula, which will consequently take us even further
away from the average.
The legacy of an unsatisfactory funding settlement has been further
worsened for our school by
rising expenditure demands owing to national policy decisions
beyond our control, notably those
associated with staffing costs. These include a rise in the
National Living Wage, increased employer
National Insurance and pension contributions, the new
apprenticeship levy and teacher pay rises
(which though capped at 1% have not been provided for in our
funding allocation).
Furthermore, as Devon is not able to afford the support required by
children with special needs and
disabilities, a decision was recently taken by the council to take
another £33 per pupil from the
budget of every school to pay back the deficit in this funding.
This is an additional £12,606 cut from
our budget. The cumulative impact of all these cuts and rising
costs is that we are faced with making
savings of around £45,606 between now and 2019.
We are very worried that trying to save this huge amount of money
from our budget is bound to
have a negative impact on what we do. We are trying very hard to
mitigate the effect of any cuts we
make but, inevitably, we will have to reduce our staffing as, in
any school, the cost of paying all the
staff amounts to around 80% of the school budget. This means that
class sizes are likely to get
bigger; teachers will have increased workloads; we will need to
review and reduce our curriculum
offer; there will be less in-class support from teaching
assistants; and some of the pastoral support
could be trimmed.
Started by: andrea glover
This ePetition ran from 30/01/2017 to 30/04/2017 and has now finished.
27 people signed this ePetition.