5 Lewes schools demand a real increase in funding

Educators, parents and the Save Our Schools campaign condemn Government promises of future funding as ‘too little, too late.’ Funding shortfalls and cuts will still affect children in 147 out of 150 local authorities in England.

Lewes schools joined forces with almost 350 schools to display banners highlighting cuts in government spending and demand immediate action.

Save Our Schools points out most areas will be even worse off next year than this, despite extra money they’ll receive in 2020.

And Lewes schools will also be worse off next year; this year they face cuts of £37m, and this will almost double to £67.7m of cuts next year.

Parents, children and staff are joining forces at Lewes Priory, South Malling CE Primary, Southover CE Primary, Wallands Community Primary and Western Road Community Primary schools, unveiling Save Our Schools banners to highlight the ongoing funding shortfalls schools are facing.

Zoe Gallagher of Save Lewes Schools says: “Leaders must make increasingly impossible decisions about which services to cut and which basic supplies to go without because school budgets are so tight. Increasingly, teachers are having to spend their own money to fund basic classroom supplies.”

Campaigners say in real terms, across the country, the government’s announcement means 83% of schools will still lose out next year due to cuts which are more substantial than funding promised. And they add by 2023, schools will be £3.6 billion short of what they need to provide a good education with more than 16,000 schools having less money per pupil in 2020 than in 2015.

The £7 billion promised by the government from 2020-2023 will not come close to restoring school funding to 2010 levels.

Alison Ali of Save Our Schools said: “Don’t believe the hype. Buildings are crumbling, teachers and support staff are losing their jobs and subjects vanishing from the curriculum. Many schools now close early on Friday afternoons to meet their budgets. And it’s our children who are suffering the most.”

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies describes the Government’s promise of additional funding as “somewhere between meaningless and misleading”.