EVERY school in Bolton will experience a fall in its funding per pupil in the coming years, according to a teachers’ union which is urging people to contact their MPs to stop education from going back in time to the 1950s.

Figures released by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) show that every school in the borough by 2019/20 will see its per-pupil funding decrease between two per cent and 19 per cent compared to 2013/14.

Nationally 98.5 per cent of schools will see their per pupil funding cut in real terms, on average £339 per pupil in primary schools and £474 in secondary schools per year.

The Bolton News reported at the start of the year that the majority of secondary schools in Bolton will lose money under funding changes being proposed by the Government.

Tables published by the Government as part of the national funding formula consultation indicate that the borough’s high schools will be worse off.

Now the National Union of Teachers (NUT) General Secretary Kevin Courtney has written to council chiefs outlining the “scale of budget cuts”.

In his letter, Mr Courtney stated: “As you know school funding is in crisis.

“The Government is pushing through ill-thought out plans to introduce a National Funding Formula for schools without putting in the additional funding that is desperately needed. At the same time schools are having to contend with real terms cuts to per-pupil funding, while local authorities suffer from major cuts to the Education Services Grant and other swingeing cuts to town hall budgets.”

Figures released by the NUT show that every school would experience a real-terms cut to its per pupil funding.

Julia Simpkins, secretary of Bolton NUT, said: “Schools are already being forced to restructure and make their non-teaching staff redundant, such as teaching assistants, and this will have a massive effect on teachers’ already heavy workloads, where they are working until 11pm, and children’s learning.

“Schools will go back to the 1950s where there was one teacher in charge of a large class of more than 30 pupils and the challenge will be keeping those children in their seats as well as engaging them in their learning. It will make organising essential small group working much harder.”

The union says that the Government’s promise not to cut a school’s budget by more than three per cent would mean these schools would receive flat cash settlements for years to come with some schools getting no more funding until 2025 or later. According to the NUT this will affect 18 schools in Bolton.

Ms Simpkins said: “Schools may not lose more than three per cent immediately but will do in real terms over the coming years.”

She urged people to contact their MPs to protest against the “ill-thought” out formula. Ms Simpkins said: “This is down to the Government and people need to speak to their MPs.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "The government has protected the core schools budget in real terms since 2010, with school funding at its highest level on record at more than £40bn in 2016-17.

"But the system for distributing that funding across the country is unfair, opaque and outdated. We are going to end the historic post code lottery in school funding and under the proposed national schools funding formula, more than half of England’s schools will receive a cash boost.

“In Bolton funding would go up by 2.5 percent, over £4.5m, if the proposed new funding formula was implemented and 64 percent of schools in the region would stand to gain.

“We are consulting on the factors that will make up the formula and we know that it is important that we get this right so that every pound of the investment we make in education has the greatest impact. The consultation will run until 22 March 2017, and we are keen to hear from as many schools, governors, local authorities and parents as possible.”

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