Head Reveals Budget Squeeze puts Pressure on Resources

The Headteacher has hit out against the government in last week's Camden New Journal (we're surprised they still speak) about the lack of funding local schools are getting.

Speaking about the latest plans by the government to tweak the funding formula in England and Wales to take more money from the inner cities to give to schools out in the country, the article said:

'The Department for Education says funding is higher than ever before, but Hampstead School headteacher Jacques Szemalikowski warned; "By 2019, we estimate that we will lose £1million from our annual budget. This figure is simply too large to continue offering all we do for our pupils."'

 Most of this we already knew before, or could guess at, but it puts in writing some very strong claims. The school will lose money in the coming years, it will have to drop subjects, resources or activities as it has already been doing and Hampstead students will be worse off, in a time when we need as many well-educated people as possible. We doubt it, but one possible money saver would be scaling back on the school's marketing campaigns, of which £1m probably just about covers, as we have been suggesting for the past three years.

The article went on to quote a letter from the Head to the paper, in which he said:

"We have already seen budget cuts and are having to plan tough decisions about what to cut in order to make savings, while minimising impact on our pupils."

If only he had such foresight of what was to come from the - I don't know - six years of Tory government last year, when now-Education Secretary Justine Greening was stomping around the English Block in the name of children's rights, he would have had the foresight and gumption to plead with her directly.