A headteacher from Stroud is among over a thousand marching to Downing Street today to protest a lack of funding for schools.

Ms Julia Maunder of Thomas Keble School is joining a march organised by the Worth Less? campaign off the back off research showing squeezed school budgets across the UK.

She told the SNJ: “It is part of our role as headteachers to ensure sufficient funding to enable all our children to reach their potential and call for change when we do not have the resources necessary.

“To do otherwise would be an abdication of our responsibility to the community we serve.”

 

Ms Julia Maunder outside Westminster today

Overall school spending has remained constant since 2010 but inflation and more pupils means the money is being spread more thinly, a spokesperson for the think tank behind the research told the SNJ.

This amounts to a fall in per pupil funding of about 8% in real terms, the Institute for Fiscal Studies spokesperson said.

 

Over a thousand headteachers turned out for the march according to Ms Maunder

Archway School’s headteacher Colin Belford has also warned his school’s budget remains “desperate”.

 

An aerial shot of Archway School

“The squeeze so far has largely been invisible and not appeared on the frontline,” he said.

“But we’re beginning to see increased class sizes and less support for students beyond the classroom via pastoral care.

“If things continue, Archway is predicting a budget deficit next year.”

Concerns from Stroud’s headteachers recently prompted MP David Drew to take the issue of school funding to the Prime Minister.

In July he told Theresa May in the House of Commons that schools in Stroud lack enough extra cash to care children with special needs and instead are having to dip into their main pot of money - a reality shared to him Ms Maunder.

Mr Drew said ahead of today’s march: “Headteachers face the reality of trying to make ends meet in our schools.

“They tell me that they are forced to make difficult decisions every day because of tight budgets."