In the run-up to this year's general election, a group of local parents organised a demonstration and march protesting about planning cuts to funding for schools - who knows, it may even have influenced the way the voting went in Enfield Southgate.
In the run-up to this year's general election, a group of local parents organised a The group behind the march - Fair Funding for All Schools-Enfield - continue to campaign, as do parents throughout the country. They've produced a new video and issued a press release - see below.
#FutureStealers video highlights the REAL monster under the bed - crippling cuts to education funding
As a response to this, parents and children in Enfield have made a short video (guest starring Tulip the Guinea Pig and Jo Yurky from the national Fair Funding for All Schools campaign) to demonstrate how reducing funding is tantamount to stealing futures. Although it's a million miles from the kind of big budget videos currently being released, the lack of funds to education services will have a far greater impact on children's lives than any monster under the bed.
They worked with Holly Rivers (@hollyriversshow), film maker and children's drama facilitator, to devise a video that was fun for kids to make whilst making a serious point about the state of school funding.
Schoolcuts.org and IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) figures show that children are experiencing the biggest real-terms cut in funds for a generation. This equates to a £2.8bn reduction since 2015. Although the government announced an additional £1.3bn in July 2017, this was not new money from the Treasury, but is expected to be found within existing Department of Education resources. The IFS states that even with this funding, school budgets are still being cut by 4.6 per cent from 2015 to 2020. This has left 88 per cent of schools in England facing real-terms cuts. The ramifications of this have been seen through reductions in teaching staff, increased class sizes, fewer subjects on offer - the list goes on. All across the country parents are being asked to make direct debit contributions in a fight to maintain standards.
Enfield parent Ruth Donaldson said of the #FutureStealers video:
"We wanted to demonstrate that children get one chance at a quality education. Every child has dreams about what they'd like to achieve in life. If you take their funds, you're stealing their chance at achieving their potential.
The #FutureStealers video was made on a shoestring with volunteers coming to the school on a Saturday afternoon. Our local school is facing a per pupil funding cut of 13 per cent, and needs to find a further £150K savings to balance the books this year. We may not have millions to pour into promotional materials, but parents feel very strongly about this issue and are not going away.
We would like the government to see education as an investment, not a cost. Education is the foundation of all our futures, and we feel current plans are short sighted in targeting children's learning in this way. We live in one of the world's richest economies, our children deserve a first class state funded education.
Our request is that cuts are reversed, and that per pupil levels of funding are protected in real terms over the lifetime of this parliament. The Chancellor's budget on the 22nd November is the government's opportunity to show they're listening to parents."
For further information please contact Ruth Donaldson at Fair Funding Enfield - .
See also this tweet by Holly Rivers.
