Every school in Croydon faces further funding cuts if the Conservatives are returned to power in Thursday’s General Election.
Hands up if you want your parents to vote for more schools funding, instead of less
Those are the findings of the National Education Union, who state that some of Croydon’s 103 state schools could lose as much as £1,100 per year per pupil in the latest real terms funding cuts under the Tories.
The NEU is part of the School Cuts Coalition, which has worked out what the different party manifestos mean for school funding. The group has relaunched its website – www.schoolcuts.org.uk – to show exactly what the manifestos of the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats mean for every school in England.
Funding cuts have already hit schools hard across the country. In Croydon, at least one school is closing at lunchtime on one day each week because the headteacher doesn’t have funds available in their budget to pay teaching staff.
The NEU’s school cuts research found that on average schools in Croydon would see:
• Cuts of £155 per pupil in real terms compared with 2015 under the Conservative manifesto
• No cuts compared with 2015 under the LibDems
• Gains of £220 per pupil compared with 2015 under the Labour manifesto.
The research also revealed that:
• 4,735 Croydon pupils are in classes with more than 30
• Schools in Croydon would have been £17.2million better off this year if the cuts had not been made.
How the NEU’s schools cuts map charts a very worrying picture of funding under the Conservatives for all Croydon’s schools
Joseph Flynn, the NEU’s area secretary for Croydon, said that 80 per cent of Croydon schools would still be lower funded in real terms than in 2015 if the Conservatives win the election, but that they would all get significantly more money if Labour forms the next government.
“The information is clear for every parent, teacher, headteacher and member of school staff,” Flynn said.
“We don’t tell people who to vote for. But we would ask them to do their homework before they vote and we do ask them to vote for education.”
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Perhaps they could adopt a new slogan for their education standards “Deterioration, Deterioration, Deterioration”?