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Budget cuts bite as schools scale back services

Four out of 10 head teachers and other senior school staff are cutting school services due to funding constraints, according to a study.

The survey of 1,500 primary, secondary and college heads and special educational needs co-ordinators found that 26 per cent have had to either close or reduce extended services such as breakfast and after-school clubs.

One in 10 has cut sports and music and six per cent have either stopped or cut one-to-one tuition.

Secondary schools have been the hardest hit, with one in three head teachers in the sector reporting cuts.

The survey, carried out by school support organisation The Key, also found schools are struggling to cope with an increase in administrative work due to council cut backs.

Despite local authority cutbacks, school leaders reported unease at switching to academy status.

Of those surveyed 35 per cent say they are not clear about the financial implications of switching.  Small schools and those with high numbers of pupils with special educational needs are among those most unsure about academy status.

Fergal Roche, managing director of The Key, said that school leaders “are more concerned than ever about getting value for money and are having to make some tough decisions about where to spend resources”

Gove blasts academy critics

Education Secretary Michael Gove has hit out at critics of the academy programme, describing them as being “happy with failure.

in a speech at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College, which is one of three federated academies in Kent, Gove said critics of academies are “the same old ideologues pushing the same old ideology of failure and mediocrity”.

He also spoke of the previous Labour government’s support for the programme and the success of some academies in the UK in turning around academic performance.

“The sad truth is that, for some of these critics, the facts don’t matter much. And they’ll continue to view the spread of autonomy as an unwelcome onslaught,” Gove said.

“They’ll continue to talk about the government ‘threatening’ schools with academy conversion.”

He urged critics, such as teaching unions and “obstructive” councils to see academies as “an opportunity”, adding “it’s only a threat to the complacent; to those who have been complicit in failure. It’s certainly not a threat for the children concerned; for them, it’s a liberation.”

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and one of the staunchest critics of the academy programme, described Gove’s speech as “an insult” to teachers, head teachers, support staff and governors.

She said: “The academy programme is wrecking local education authority services to schools, including school improvement services. Each time a school becomes an academy, funding is removed from the local education authority, reducing services and support to remaining schools.

“It has nothing to do with school improvement but is part of an ideologically driven agenda to dismantle our current system of local accountability for education.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT, said: “No-one will be surprised that the first formal speech of the New Year made by Michael Gove was about academies, delivered in an academy. Another year, another series of speeches on academies.

“Despite the spin he puts on the figures, the fact is that only just over 1,500 schools out of the country’s 23,000 are academies,” Keates added