Schools’ budgets ‘cut back to the bare bones’, headteacher warns

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

Headteachers have been forced to cut back their budgets “to the bare bones” because of financial pressures on schools.

Education union leaders have also warned that teachers across Wales are buying their own classroom supplies for pupils because school budgets are so bleak.

Laura Doel, the national secretary for school leaders’ union NAHT Cymru (National Association of Head Teachers) said some members were facing “heartbreaking” decisions to lay off staff because there are no other budget areas left to make cuts.

Staffing

She told Caerphilly County Borough Council’s joint scrutiny committee that staffing takes up the majority of today’s school budgets, and many leaders had already been forced to cut back in other spending areas to try to avoid losing any teachers or support workers.

There had been cases of parent-teacher associations (PTAs) fundraising for classroom resources and teachers having to buy pens and papers for their children, Ms Doel said.

“The only reason schools are making staff redundant is because there is nowhere else to cut,” she told councillors.

Teaching assistants

Ms Doel said losses could include “vital” teaching assistants, and the union was already seeing some schools “simply struggle” without them.

“That has a huge impact on the staff left behind to pick up the pieces”, she said, adding that education workers “don’t do it for the money” but for the “love of the children”.

Caerphilly Council invited the union to address members, on Monday December 9, following the publication of an NAHT Cymru report which warned schools across Wales were facing a “harrowing” financial situation.

Schools in Caerphilly are expected to collectively be millions of pounds worse off at the end of the financial year than they were 12 months earlier.

‘Bare bones’

Chris Parry, the headteacher of Lewis School Pengam and the outgoing president of NAHT Cymru, told councillors schools had “for some time” been forced to make the type of difficult budget decisions now faced by local authorities.

He said headteachers had “probably done everything we can do” to try and balance the books, and had “really cut back to the bare bones”.

Those choices also meant some schools struggled to offer vocational opportunities, Mr Parry added.

Council leader Sean Morgan noted the NAHT report mentioned “reversing the tide” for school funding, and said “that is something I’m sure we can all work together to achieve”.

But councils face their own wider budget gaps – estimated to be £45 million in Caerphilly over the next two years – and Cllr Morgan urged colleagues to remember the importance of education when they debated the budget proposals in the new year.

“Children only get one chance,” he said, adding that Estyn had praised teaching in the county borough, but the NAHT report “clearly shows” education in Wales “is massively under financial stress”.

Cllr Morgan also backed a suggestion, by Cllr Kevin Etheridge, that the council could write to the Welsh Government with its concerns about school finances.