Jan 10, 2019, West Sussex County Times: Horsham school leaders meet to discuss funding crisis in education https://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/education/horsham-school-leaders-meet-to-discuss-funding-crisis-in-education-1-8764548 Two Horsham school leaders have met to discuss the chronic underfunding of education and how their campaigns for significant extra spending by the Treasury can support one another. Jules White, headteacher at Tanbridge House School, has been spearheading the Worth Less? campaign, which was initially only county-wide but now has national support. Meanwhile Sally Bromley, principal at The College of Richard Collyer, is supporting the #raisetherate campaign, which is highlighting how sixth-form funding is in crisis. Two deep cuts to funding were made after 2010 and the national funding rate for 16-and-17-year-olds has been frozen at £4,000 per student, per year since 2013. Funding for 18-year-olds was cut to just £3,300 per student in 2014. The running costs of schools and colleges have increased sharply since 2010 and the government has imposed a range of new requirements on institutions. This has left much less money for schools and colleges [high schools] to spend on the front line education of students at a time when the needs of young people have become increasingly complex, for example the sharp rise in students experiencing mental health problems. Research from London Economics has shown that the rate needs to increase by at least £760 per student per year to ensure that schools and colleges can continue to deliver a high quality, internationally-competitive education. … The campaign has now gone national with around 2,000 headteachers marching on Downing Street in September to call for urgent Government action on the school funding crisis. Reacting to the secretary of state’s announcement last month to increase funding for students with a special educational need, Mr White said: “The funding for both SEND and high needs pupils has been woefully lacking in recent years. “Demand for local authority high needs funding has grown by 35 per cent in just four years whilst mainstream schools have seen their budgets savaged by eight per cent real terms cuts since 2010. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
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What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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