It begins:Schools urged to save £750m costs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8379911.stm

Schools in England will have to share resources and make smarter purchases to save £750m and safeguard teaching jobs.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls said head teachers needed to start planning now in order to protect frontline services.

Staff cuts are already planned in many of the schools I work in..

[Scarlett]

Mate of mine went in September. He was the IT manager but they reduced the hours to term time only and asked him to re-apply for his job at the same money he'd started on 18 years previously...

Needless to say he took the redundancy cheque instead.

[Taf]

Around here, schools have been closed, are soon to be closed, playing fields about to be sold for housing (the very expensive sort)... all because "student numbers are falling"... but mainly because there is a £50million black hole in the school maintenance budget.

Pupils are being forced to travel further and further as local schools for all ages close in high population areas.... but no school buses except for religious and Welsh-language schools!

Another thing going on is closure of an English language school, only for it to reopen after major works as "a much-demanded Welsh language school". Not demanded at all by the local population I can assure you....

They're having to expand in Leeds (17 Schools at Primary School level) due to the upsurge in the numbers of young children.

Education Leeds and BBC

[nomadking]

I remember being at school in the late 1970's under a Labour Government. We had to bring our own paper.

[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by nomadking

I remember being at school in the late 1970's under a Labour Government. We had to bring our own paper.

I've got that beat.

South Bolton 6th Form College, 1982-1984.

Doing A-Level Physics and Chemistry.

With no lab equipment.

Not so much as a bloody test tube.

We didn't get anything until partway through the second year - and most of it was crap, some of it older than the students. Where did the first-class equipment from Deane Grammar's 6th form go, that's what I want to know. In addition the "labs" (hastily refitted from having been shower facilities) were badly laid-out, with electrical outlets way too close to water outlets. The fire extinguisher (that's the fire extinguisher) in the physics "lab" was fixed to the wall - "fixed" in the sense that you couldn't use the damn thing.

Worse, in Chemistry we still had to do the 1st year practicals - because the 2nd year practicals were structured on the (anywhere else, perfectly reasonable) assumption that various reagents required had been prepared by the students in their 1st year. The result of this was that some students spent entire weeks doing little else but chemistry practicals. By the time we escaped that gulag, our lab coats looked very authentic. One lad's coat was a collection of holes, burned in various colours, held together by scraps of material.

I was so demoralised I abandoned all thought of going to uni, and I wasn't the only one, because I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere near acceptable grades; this was frustrating and humiliating because I got an A in both subjects at O-Level. There should have been some sort of inquiry as to why students who got As and Bs at O-Level were getting Cs or worse.

No, I am not making any of this up. I wish I were; I'm still trying to forget those two years and the irreparable mental harm they did me. Cost-cutting? Tell me about it. Those penny-pinching dolts ruined my life.

You know when there is a recession in education..It's when there are only enough text books for one between three...

Then you end up with scanned in printed pages handed out because there aren't any books left.

[Ignitionnet]

Education, education, education!

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

They're having to expand in Leeds (17 Schools at Primary School level) due to the upsurge in the numbers of young children.

Education Leeds and BBC

has there been a population explosion in leeds?

[Welshchris]

Originally Posted by nomadking

I remember being at school in the late 1970's under a Labour Government. We had to bring our own paper.

Nothing new there we had to do that when i was in secondary school between 1993 - 1998.

Originally Posted by papa smurf

has there been a population explosion in leeds?

Two Universities, a very strong financial and legal centre - attracts young people, they settle down and do what comes naturally.

[Halcyon]

It's the complete opposite here. Tonnes of money is being put into building schools for the future projects and last time I caught a glimpse of a report on the school where I work each student was being allocated money in resources and some of the lucky students who are on free school meals/low income get free laptops too!

[Arthurgray50@blu]

If the Tories get in, it will be worse that is gurranteed, they will want to cut as much as possible to make more money for themself.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

If the Tories get in, it will be worse that is gurranteed, they will want to cut as much as possible to make more money for themself.

theres no money left, brown has given it away or squandered it we are broke

Arthur i hate to burst your bubble but this government has screwed us all and the country six ways from sunday so whoever gets in will have to swing the cuts axe very badly. But coming from this government who made such play about education this is a complete failure to protect basic promises they made. I am sure education has a little waste that could be cut but to bear this level of cut is ridiculous and they cannot tell me they didn't see it coming and yet again failed to do a damn thing to minimise it. Never mind it's only the kids that will suffer and as this government seems to like dumbed down people i am sure this will suit them quite nicely not that they would ever say such a thing in public.