Worries about schools cutting costs as North Yorkshire children return
The National Education Union says headteachers may have to make some tough decisions
There are concerns headteachers in North Yorkshire may have to make some tough decisions as children return to classrooms this week.
The National Education Union says they could be looking at cutting costs due to rising energy prices, wages and a lack of funding.
Gary McVeigh-Kaye is the Branch Secretary of the NEU in North Yorkshire and he used to teach in Knaresborough. He said: "The Government haven't given any extra money to schools for those pay increases or for the rise in energy bills. Those extra finances have got to come out of already stretched school budgets, so that's where the real impact is going to come for schools when children return is that already stretched school budgets are going to be pushed to the absolute limits.
"Headteachers are having to meet these challenges head on with very little preparation. Of course they didn't know exactly how much energy bills were going to be going up in this latest price cap rise, so they're going to have to find creative ways of making sure they can run their schools. One of the things that concerns me is that possibly the first port of call is looking at staffing across the board.
"I think the first people who will be impacted will be our very vital teaching assistants. I think schools are going to be put in a very difficult position where they're going to have to consider how many of those teaching assistants they can afford to employ. The same goes for cleaning staff and site staff who maintain the site. They're going to be the jobs that are going to be under threat first as cost-cutting measures.
"I'd like to see the Government fund the education properly. Education is one of those things that when it's important to them it's placed at the highest priority but when it comes to actually funding it properly, they seem a bit more reluctant to do that. It needs funding and it needs the Government to find a way of funding the increased wages and the increase in energy bills.
"The cost of living crisis has a knock-on effect on our children and their families. We are an Education Union; we look after our children and we look after our families. We know anecdotally that across North Yorkshire more children have been pushed into poverty. More and more children are not getting fed warm meals at home and they're relying on meals at school."