Small rural schools warn of closure fears because of unfunded costs

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/20/close-small-rural-schools-closure-fears-cuts-costs

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Mark Squires, headteacher of Selside school in Cumbria, is worried about his school’s finances. Running in deficit is a problem for any school: for a small one such as his, of just 78 children, with limited financial wiggle room, it can feel like a disaster.

Among the various new troubles this year is the free school meals policy – some of the funds meant for education instead went on a new dishwasher. The school didn’t offer dinners before the introduction of universal infant free school meals last September, and without a dishwasher on site, serving hot food would have been impossible.

And then there are staffing costs. “What’s happening with us and others without kitchens, is the meal providers take the £2.30 we get for the meal,” he explains. “But we have to employ someone to collect the meals, pay for their petrol, and then their time to do the washing up. There’s no money for that.”

“All our parents love having free hot meals, but it’s cost us an additional £7,000 this year and that is our deficit.”

Having just set their budgets for the forthcoming academic year, headteachers across the country are also telling of intense pressure on every line of their spreadsheets as they grapple with flat funding levels while facing increased national insurance and pension contributions for every member of staff, plus a 1% teachers’ pay rise. This is painful enough for a school of 800-1,000 pupils, which might have to lose a member of staff, says Neil Short from the National Association of Small Schools. In a small rural school with a staff of just three or four, he says, “you can’t do that”.

‘The local authority will say, we have no plans to close small schools. But they don’t need to plan it’

The “per pupil” funding formula for schools announced in 2013 has already hit small schools hard. This year the extra, unfunded, staffing costs have created more problems.

Last March Sir David Bell, the DfE’s former chief civil servant, raised eyebrows when he suggested the government could close small schools to save money. Norfolk is one local authority already reviewing the viability of its small schools. None of the three main political parties is championing the value of small schools to rural communities, and Short says that without such backing, councils with budgets slashed to the bone may conclude that it would be easier to “rationalise” them.

At Rattlesden primary school in Suffolk, which has 120 pupils, headteacher Bridget Burke says higher unfunded costs mean “we’re hitting a perfect storm”.

“They say you should keep staffing at 80% of your budget, but we’ve gone over that,” she says. “It worries me, because I’ve always managed to balance my budget before and keep a little bit in hand for unforeseen things.”

This year, says Burke, “if you have a child who comes to you with additional needs, there’s no money for that”.

So far she has coped by dipping into her emergency fund. “This is the first time in five years that we’ve had to eat into our ‘carry forward’, and governors had to think very carefully about that,” says Burke. But she knows other heads whose governors won’t allow it. “You’re going to see small schools close.”

Schools are allowed to run in deficit as long as they can prove they’ll be able to scrape back the cash in the future, but Short is worried that small schools will face trouble. “Local authorities are not going to close a 1,500 student school because it’s too big a target,” he says. “Small schools are more vulnerable. I think some local authorities would see [a deficit] as the final straw.”

The headteachers in charge of 10 small schools who were interviewed for this article face different combinations of budget pressures depending on their size and local context. But for every head, the financial stakes are high, the strains intense and growing. Some fear that the changes made to school funding mean that their school risks closure.

It seems particularly unfair to some heads that the individual attention small schools are particularly good at can become the very source of financial problems that put them at risk. “We have awards for our special needs work, and parents choose to send their high-needs children to us, but the biggest impact on our budget is SEN funding,” says Christine Kirton, headteacher at Thurstonland first school in West Yorkshire, which has 68 pupils.

If we think, we’ll lose a teacher, and end up with three age groups in each class, standards will drop

For children with statements, schools must now find the first £6,000 of the cost of the personalised support to which those pupils are entitled. Local authority funding then kicks in to top up to the total allocated amount. At a small school such as Thurstonland, sometimes £6,000 simply cannot be found.

“You’re supposed to find that money from your pupil premium, but we have no pupil premium children,” Kirton says. “We have two SEN children here, both of whom had a support worker. But the cost of two staff was just too much.”

Kirton had to lose one of the support staff. “What makes me furious is this is an outstanding school – am I here to raise standards or just to cut costs?”.

The greatest threat to small schools, say some heads, could come from falling standards caused by all these financial pressures. “Even with 140 pupils, we have almost nowhere to flex money back,” says the headteacher of a village primary in the south-west. “The only possible place is designated money for school improvement. That includes the freedom I have to choose how to pay for staff development. And to me that’s the most exciting thing about being a head, being able to improve yourself and your staff, because that’s what leads directly to better outcomes for children.”

This head is currently recruiting to replace an experienced year 6 teacher. He says, “I’m awake at night because I’m potentially going to have to employ a newly qualified teacher in year 6. I’d like to feel that I can afford to employ the best teacher for that job.”

The more senior and experienced school staff are, the harder the increased NI, pension contributions and 1% pay rise will hit. In this situation, says Kirton, small schools may find they end up in a downward spiral.

“If we look at the budget and think we cannot sustain three classes, we’ll go to two. We’ll lose a teacher and end up with three age groups in each class, and standards will drop,” she says. “We’re driven by Ofsted to raise standards, but funding cuts mean standards will fall.”

Local authorities and central government recommend that small schools consider federating to share a headteacher. But Jo Redfern, headteacher for two infant schools of 88 and 57 in Nottinghamshire, does not believe that formal cooperation is the answer to poor funding, although she is in no doubt of the benefits of collaboration. “I think it would be wrong to go into a collaboration because you think you’ll save money, because that is not about children’s interests,” she says.

Despite her two-school partnership, Redfern is having to redesign the staffing structure and knows she will have to lose people. “I feel under pressure. There’s a human cost, because this is about people’s jobs. It is stressful, and something no one likes or wants to do.”

Local politicians often sing the praises of small schools. But when push comes to shove, will they be able to help? “The local authority have said to me, one of the options is to make your school smaller,” says Kirton. “And then they’ll say to me, ‘we have no plans to close small schools’. But they don’t need to plan it, because if numbers are reduced, schools will wither and die.”

Small school closures might not be a council’s policy, observes Short, but when budget pressures bite, the worst-case scenario might simply happen as “a natural progression”.