Eyebrows raised as funding for UK schools is cut

Many schools across the country are bracing for huge budget cuts. In a school network where strapped for cash is an understatement, are more schools and less money really the way forward?

Around 11,000 schools will gain from the “new and improved” funding formula, of which 3,400 will see increases of 5% to their funding. Although, unions have been warned that even the so-called winners in the new funding regime are likely to see their gains outweighed by real-terms cuts to their funding over the next three years whilst the budget continues to be stretched thinner and thinner.

These cuts will take around 8% of the yearly budget from almost nine thousand already underfunded schools to create a grand total of approximately £3 billion pounds yearly; this money will be used with £320 million going towards building one hundred and forty new schools throughout Britain to deal with the ever growing population. Another £216 million going towards refurbishing existing schools. The rest of the money has not yet been given a purpose.

Theresa May is very keen to remind the public that the issues with Brexit will not stop or slow her work within the failing education system and has said “The brutal and unacceptable truth is that for far too many children in ordinary working class families, the chance they have in life is determined by where they live or how much money their parents have.”

The biggest issue with this is how the cuts will affect the education of British children. This is because the less money the school gets, the less teachers get paid, more teachers leave or don’t join the education system in the first place. That creates a situation where good well trained teachers are spread few and far between, this leaves teachers that aren’t fully qualified yet and haven’t had all the training they need to teach effectively being pushed into starting work to fill the gaps that are being left behind by trained teachers leaving or retiring.

We interviewed a member of senior management at Neale Wade Academy: Mr Gaskins who made it very clear he was disappointed about Brexit, felt that Brexit would restrict the amount of teachers coming into the country and will stop the school from being as diverse as it once was.

In conclusion the supposed “New and improved” funding system will cause some big problems for the future of education in Britain and should make for some interesting years to come.