Education... Education... Education!

The government recently released data for England's state schools, showing funding and expenditure per pupil, as well as how the money is spent. There has been considerable media coverage in recent weeks on this very contentious issue. 

Bob explains... "It's a sad reality that Cambridgeshire's Children receive 13% LESS in educational spending than other children in the rest of the UK."

In 2009/2010 Cambridgeshire's children received £34 million less than almost everywhere else in the UK!

In 2012/2013 Cambridgeshire was 143rd out of 151 local authorities in education spending...

In 2013/2014 Cambridgeshire drops to 151st... Bottom of the pile!

That's approximately £600 per year, per pupil less than the rest of the UK!!! 

WHY?

Ken explains: "Our schools have been under funded since the 1980's when funding was first cut. Today our children are still paying the price for those decisions. It seems there has been little intervention from successive governments, so year on year our children have had significantly less spent on their education than their contemporaries in other counties."

Less money last year - even less money this year!

"Of course every child should be given the opportunity to be educated to the best of their ability but evidence of that is lacking within the county. Indeed educational standards are slipping in some areas. That was evident last year with the lower A* - C GSCE results.

Ken and Bob are proposing to build closer ties to the Cambridge Schools forum and work alongside the St Neots schools to raise awareness of this very important issue. They believe that far too little has been done by the County Council's Cabinet member for Learning on this extremely serious matter. It's not a matter of writing a few letters or holding court on the playground - this requires action and fast!

Recent figures show that Cambridgeshire's results, place the county 94th out of 152 local authorities for GCSE results for last year. 

Ken commented. "This drop from 64th the previous year is bad enough, but consider two years before that, we were 38th! It is not our children that are failing the County, the County is failing our children!"

We recognise that locally the focus has been on foundation and early years which provides our children with a good grounding for their education. But now Ken and Bob believe that now more than ever there is a real need to increase the scope of focus to include the years beyond foundation, right through to the completion of education. Our children deserve to receive the education that children in other counties receive.

Gaps in the funding, which currently covers nursery provision, mainstream schools, special schools and all high-needs pupils are evident to anyone working within Education as well as many parents, particularly those with a child with special needs.

At a recent meeting one local parent spoke frankly... "You have to justify yourself and justify your child's needs because they are different. You have to fight all the way to get anywhere, its exhausting! We were told the same thing, over and over... It always takes a very long time before children get the help they need because of the lack of funding, and even then there is no guarantee you'll get anywhere! How long does my child have to wait? He needs help now - not in two years time when things will be so much worse!" 

The campaign from the Cambridgeshire Schools Forum have been trying for a number of years to get something done to close the gap between what our children have and what they need. Ken says: 

"Pupils in Cambridgeshire deserve to be treated like every other student in every other county. This is something we feel very strongly about, I really want to raise this issue. I've had a good education, my children received a good education. Like many other residents... I want the same for my grand-children!"

All images and text © cg-photography
Promoted by Carol Gamby on behalf of Ken Churchill and Bob Farrer all of 83 Huntingdon Street, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, PE19 1DU