More than 75% of schools on the Isle of Wight have faced real-terms cuts since 2010, new data has revealed. The schoolcuts website – which is a campaign fighting against educational funding cuts – is run by education unions: National Education Union, Association of School and College Leaders, National Association of Head Teachers, and supported by Parentkind and National Governance Association. Ahead of the 6th March budget statement, those behind the website are collectively calling for urgent action to reverse cuts schools have faced since 2010. A total of 13 Island schools have experienced real-terms cuts of over £100,000, with the largest secondary school being £1.4million at Ryde Academy and £600,709 at Cowes Enterprise College. In the primary sector, the biggest cuts have been at Shalfleet £227,695, Hunnyhill £333,903 and Lanesend £680,475. It was only last week that Lanesend Primary in Cowes announced it was to cut teacher numbers – https://www.islandecho.co.uk/lanesend-primary-to-cut-teaching-staff-in-a-bid-to-reign-in-budget/. Fortunately, 7 Island schools have avoided real terms cuts. However, the majority have been hit hard, particularly by the growing crisis in special educational needs funding. Commenting, Peter Shreeve, Assistant District Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“Despite regularly highlighting the plight of schools beset by years of underfunding, schools still face swingeing cuts. “The effects of 14 years of austerity are clear for all to see: The largest class sizes in Europe and yet again Government failure to hit its teacher training recruitment targets for almost all secondary subjects. “We know, some heads have already been forced to calculate what extra cuts they are going to have to make in order to balance their budgets in 2024/25. “In his October 2023 Conservative Party Conference speech the Prime Minster pledged: “My main funding priority in every spending review from now on will be education. “This promised “funding priority” was absent in the subsequent Autumn Statement. Will he keep his promise in the upcoming Spring Budget?”
I expect he will, it’s an election year. They’ll promise the moon, then U-turn if they get in. Please remember, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. That’s the last 14 years of Tory rule. To vote in this one you’ll need photo ID. Bus passes are not considered unless elderly (they’re more likely to vote Tory), so it will need to be a passport or driving licence just to make things hard for the young and the poor, who likely have neither. You can apply online for a voter authority certificate, but will need to take a photo and send it in and jump through a few hoops. #anyonebutseely
and why were the tories voted in – because labour left the countries finances in such a mess, that austerity was needed.
and then go back to the winter of discontent in the 1970’s under labour, where the PM had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a loan. The country was seeing three day working weeks, due to endless strikes, electricity going off every day, rubbish piled high in the streets – do i need say more.
Yeah, you really do. Justify those statements with fact please, and don’t resort to 54 years ago politics…or I might be forced to give a history lesson from the 40s….
Here’s a freebie though. When Labour went out in 2009 there had just been a worldwide financial crash caused, in part, by sub-prime lending and over-speculation on stock exchanges. Rampant capitalism if you will. Not a Labour ethos, is it?
Public sector net debt was £347 billion in 1996/97, the year before Labour came into office, and £1,011 billion in 2009/10, their last financial year in power
the 40’s had the 2nd world war – hardly a realistic example
covid was worse for public finances – your argument karen, doesn’t stack up
I posted a comment that wasn’t published. But, 3 day weeks, power cuts etc were under Ted Heaths Tory government, all changed for the better in 1974.
The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the United Kingdom characterised by widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing,
“Labour left the county’s finances in such a mess, that austerity was needed”.
you obviously know little of history (just believing the tory lies??)
Yes, austerity was introduced by the Tories when they got into power in 2010,..
but the dire financial situation then was the result of the financial crash of 2008, which was caused, in the most part, by the Tories previous de-regulation of the banking industry, encouraging the greedy bankers to make more and more risky ‘deals’ to get their multi-million pound bonuses.
I wasn’t Labours doing, it was the legacy of previous CONservative GREED based policies
(Note to potential voters,.. the Tories have recently removed the cap on Banker Bonuses, so here it comes again. 🙁 )
And why, Tory cuts, there is no n in cuts by the way. And chief MP pop up bob has done nothing to help anyone on the island. He will go next election.
Expect we’ll get a liebour, lib dums alliance.
Neither have any interest in Brits. Just unfettered migration and more woke madness.
Three quarters of schools have faced cuts since 2010, the tory take over. But sponge bob sausage seely wants to blame the alliance council!!!?
teachers and school boards will always claim poverty in an attempt to get more money, to inflate their salaries.
Perhaps if they focused on basic education instead of woke gender politics and stopped pandering to parents that claim their kid is SEN whereas the reality is that they are just lazy parents that didn’t bother teaching their kid basic social skills, then there would be more money left over.
teachers clearly don’t know how to budget and allocate capital effectively.
Where do you get your misinformation from I wonder? Maybe the same place that thinks ‘woke’ is an insult? Presumably then the opposite is ‘half-asleep’. Or fully, in your case.
Another freebie for you. In most other countries the 16-24 age group are the best educated. Most does not include UK…we rank 25th out of 32. The older generation here (55 and up) are the better educated. Budget and standards have fallen directly in line since….2010. That’s the years after the Tories got in. PLEASE do some research. As for SEN kids…don’t repeat that to their parents, you’d get lynched.
don’t make excuses for the woke, hand wringing do gooders who waste money on pointless gender politics instead of providing a real education.
you say the older generation are better educated – why is that – oh yes, they didn’t get their time wasted with gender politics and identity politics, they also didn’t waste their time painting rainbows and actually got punished if they didn’t toe the line.
no one in the older generation had ADHD – you know why, because kids that didn’t focus their attention on the lesson or wouldn’t sit still – got a good back hander across the face – that sure focused their attention and shut them up.
most SEN is made up and a convenient excuse for poor parenting.
Schools have obviously experienced necessary cuts because we live on an island with a contracting population size. The birth rate on the island has decreased massively by over 20% in the last 10 years and it continues to decrease. Clearly, the council need to stop wasting our money on school places that are no longer required and they must plan future provision for decreasing numbers of school children.
Ah well that’s okay, kids are only the future…
if schools stopped molly coddling children and promoting fragility, then we wouldn’t see weak and pathetic young adults turning up in the work places. Those weaklings then can’t hack the workplace, call in sick with the new excuse “mental health” and lo and behold, the businesses cant function because of staff shortages – see the ferry companies as prime examples.
What has that got to do with the funding situation?
My experience (yes this is just my experience) with the teachers of my two children has been mostly positive, they take no sh*t from the kids and discipline them where necessary. Not sure about Secondary school yet, that is to come.
A lot of the kids now should leave school at 14, and get work,at 16 start paying tax and NI and let the oldies retire earlier
The only work for them on the island would be as your carer.