Struggling secondary schools facing budget cuts ‘worth four teachers’ amid cost crisis

As reported by The Independent, ‘school leaders are being forced to make impossible choices on what to cut,’ union says

Secondary schools are facing budget cuts equivalent to the loss of up to four teachers as they struggle with the cost of living crisis, a think tank has warned.

The current funding settlement for schools means that by 2024/25 funding per pupil will be three per cent lower than 2010 in real terms despite a huge jump in financial demands, the independent Education Policy Institute (EPI) said.

The EPI said the government’s own disadvantage gap measures for both primary and secondary schools now stand at their widest in a decade, and that could widen further if more public spending cuts are announced by the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, next week.

It comes as headteachers are already raising the alarm over stretched budgets, as inflation and pay increases push up costs.