‘Nothing left to cut’: More than 2,000 headteachers march on Downing Street over budgets Heads protest against school funding cuts

More than 2,000 headteachers yesterday took the “unprecedented” move to march on Downing Street in protest against cuts to their budgets.

Packed in Parliament Square in Westminster on a sunny Friday morning, the assembly of heads looked more like an annual conference of accountants than an angry mob of radicals.

The rally was organised by the grassroots campaign group Worth Less?, which is demanding more money to tackle overcrowded classrooms, staff redundancies and crumbling school buildings.

The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

Real concern

It comes after the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed that schools had suffered an 8 per cent cut to their budgets due to rising costs since 2010.

Jules White, headteacher of Tanbridge House School in West Sussex, told i he was driven to organising the protests because he, and thousands of heads around the country, had run out of areas to cut.

“There is real, real concern out there. The government says there is more money than ever before going into schools, but we know it is not true,” Mr White said.

https://twitter.com/WorthLessWS/status/1045659467403186177

“How can it be that all of these heads are down here saying the same thing? We’re reasonable professionals, who work 7o hours a week. If the Government decides to ignore this then parents will not forgive them,” he added.

Earlier this year, figures from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) revealed the number of secondary schools in England running at a loss had nearly trebled in four years.

The study, published in March, said the number of local council-run secondary schools in deficit trebled between 2013/14 and 2016/17 to 26.1 per cent.

Ros Allen, headteacher of Rosebery School in Epsom, Surrey, said she had joined the march because she said the funding for her school was “completely unsustainable”.

“We have bigger class sizes, we have children having to sit in class wearing their coats in the winter because I have no money to fund new windows and a new roof for our buildings. I have staffing reductions and so I have children with very complex special needs going without a teaching assistant,” Ms Allen added.

Unprecedented protest

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was “unprecedented” for heads to protest in such numbers.

“The government must surely realise that headteachers don’t march in central London without reason. Ministers have to act now to improve school and college funding,” Mr Barton said.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “There is more money going into schools than ever before, rising to a record £43.5 billion by 2020 – 50 per cent more in real terms per pupil than in 2000.

“Every school attracts more funding per pupil through the National Funding Formula, high needs funding has risen to over £6 billion this year, and the 3.5 per cent pay rise we announced for classroom teachers on the main pay range is backed by £508 million Government funding.”