Headteachers highlight continuing funding crisis in letter to parents

Headteachers struggling with funding cuts are sending out letters to a million families this week to highlight the continuing crisis in schools and to urge parents to lobby their MPs for more money to be put into education.

More than 4,000 schools in 17 counties, from Cornwall to Cambridgeshire, are distributing the letter which aims to keep school funding at the top of the political agenda as the government prepares to outline its legislative plans in the Queen’s speech on Wednesday.

School funding was a key issue on the doorstep during the election after a highly effective joint campaign between parents, teachers and unions to flag up the funding challenges facing schools in England.

Campaigners are keen not to lose the momentum, hoping that the government has heeded their warnings and more money will be available. Meanwhile, Conservative manifesto pledges to scrap free school lunches for primary school children and introduce more grammar schools look likely to be diluted or dropped altogether.

The headteachers’ letter says it is crucial that the government responds quickly and effectively to “a growing crisis in our schools” and warns that funding and teacher shortages are already having a profoundly negative effect on school provision.

In a recent survey of more than 750 heads, 45% said they were having to cut two or significantly more teaching posts from September; 92% said school funding was “inadequate” or “at crisis point” and 90% said recruitment was “difficult” or “extremely challenging”.

The letter acknowledges that the Conservative manifesto pledged an additional £4bn for schools over the next five years, but points out that the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank recently stated that, taking into account rising pupil numbers and inflation, the £4bn input would lead to a real-terms 2.8% cut in per-pupil funding between 2016 and 2022.

“The only way for our cash-starved schools to function effectively is for proper investment – capital/buildings and revenue – to be made into existing schools. The government must also avoid giving schools additional money through a new formula and then taking it back again through hidden costs and stealth taxes,” they write.

Schools are also hoping for an announcement on the long-awaited national funding formula, which caused uproar among some Tory backbenchers who were disappointed to find that historically underfunded schools in their constituencies that had hoped to gain from the government’s proposed formula had not.

The headteachers’ letter urges parents to continue to lobby MPs to ensure all adequate funding for all schools, adding: “It is crucial that they use their unique influence to hold the government to account.”

One of the organisers of the letter, Jules White, the headteacher of Tanbridge House secondary school in Horsham, West Sussex, said: “We are hearing from MPs themselves that school funding was a key issue on the doorstep during the election.

“Local MPs are now being lobbied again to meet with headteacher representatives in order to further address concerns.”

The letter is being distributed to parents in East Sussex, Northamptonshire, Surrey, Essex, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Devon and Norfolk among other areas.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The core schools budget has been protected in real terms since 2010 and is set to rise from £41bn in 2017-18 to over £42bn in 2019-20 with increasing pupil numbers. But we recognise that schools are facing cost pressures and will continue to provide support to help them use their funding in cost-effective ways.”

Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the general election result meant a majority of the public had not given the Conservative manifesto their approval.

He called for a national strategy on teacher recruitment and retention and urged the government to ensure that Brexit does not have a negative effect on education.