Over the past months, Alex Sobel has conducted two survey’s both of parents and the schools themselves to explore the impact of school cuts in Leeds North West.
Yesterday, the MP read out many constituent comments as he slammed the government for its ‘failure in the historic promise that links the old to the young.’
Mr Sobel described the ‘huge’ response to his survey and touched on the varied issues that were raised including the lack of teaching assistants, the increased burden on schools due to cuts to local authority services as well as the lack of funding for school trips – ‘the canary in the coalmine’ according to the MP.
Mr Sobel read a quote from a local school who said, “We cannot continue to hit the DfE’s expectations for pupil achievement and take more pupils, with less staff and resources. We are at breaking point in this profession. As the council continues to make cuts in other areas, more is put onto schools. We cannot provide the support that is needed for families without the funding to do so.”
Mr Sobel followed this up by saying “The fact that schools are willing to use the term “breaking point” is shocking to me and should be shocking to the Government.”
After quoting many constituents, Mr Sobel summed up his speech. He said, “Children are being left not with the bare minimum of an education, but with an inadequate one, which promises to have knock-on effects for their future and for wider society. Even the most ardent Conservative must be aware that the cost to the public purse of the loss of revenue generated by reduced educational attainment in this country will be far from inconsequential, as will be the social cost of failing in the historical promise that has long linked the old to the young—that things will continue to get better, that the future will be brighter and that we pass on the promise of more than we had ourselves.
“One constituent put it this way: ‘“As parent and teacher, I firmly believe the quality of education we are providing this generation is dire. Between funding cuts, inaccessible exams, no support for SEN or EAL, no trips and extracurricular activities being squeezed, I see a generation being told they are failures because we are not providing the funding or resources to help anyone except the most well adapted and able pupils to achieve. We are a laughing stock at best. Shame on this Government for letting it get to this.”’
Those are not my words, but those of a parent and teacher in my constituency.”
Note to editors
For information about both surveys please see:
For hansard please see: