ASCL responds to Sutton Trust report on school spending cuts

Responding to a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research for the Sutton Trust, showing a sharp increase in school leaders reporting spending cuts, Pepe Di'Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“School and college leaders are facing an increasingly desperate financial position and are having to make impossible decisions over where to make cuts. Reducing teaching assistants means less support for children with additional needs; reducing teachers means larger classes and cuts to the curriculum.

“Primary schools are hit hardest because their per-pupil funding rates are so low and many are also seeing falling rolls because of a reduction in the number of primary-age children. Small primary schools are often on the brink of being financially unsustainable.

“Despite the Prime Minister's rhetoric about education being the closest thing we have to a silver bullet, the reality is that the government's record is one of underfunding, complacency and neglect.”