Oh, so now that the stats don't support your side, you no longer want to believe them. Wow And the BBC accurately reporting?

Mmm. Except spending is actually up, profits are down mostly and as for teachers suffering? Perleeease! My sons physics teacher managed a 48% attendance rate at lessons last year. The rest of the time she spent in the staffroom on her Facebook page. And before you dismiss this, it's true.

Unsurprisingly due to public sector cuts, consultation times with local authorities/government bodies (for private sector projects) have increased massively, leading to long delays due to a shortage of staff.

Still, let's increase the cuts eh.

Evidence? Try contacting the EA or LA to get approval for construction schemes; compare the time it has previously taken and compare it to the time taken now, using your experience of about 11 years of doing this.
Spending may be going up, but staff have certainly been laid off.

I actually find that quite offensive, to suggest teachers arn't suffering with cuts. Perhaps, your physics teacher has plenty of funding. What group is your son in...? You don't tend to suffer 48% attendance rates in the higher/brighter sets?

Perhaps your sons teacher, doesn't care enough for her job, because she can't afford the text-books, or the props, or has the equipment to enthuse her students the way teachers should? Have you not considered this?

Spending won't actually go down as a) it's a slow process and b) the population is increasing. Just look at Bicester up the road from where I am...3 new schools are to be built in the next 6-7years. How is spending meant to go down our population is growing? Spending HAS to go up...

I can see in a few posts down from this one, you are demanding people to supply evidence. But you are telling me to "And before you dismiss this, it's true."

Proof? Not disputing it...but...it must be in the local paper or something, right?

Offended are you? Diddums. He is As level. And I have met her. She simply doesnt give a toss. The stats were compiled by the students in her group. Perhaps you will accuse them ALL of lieing. I went to school this week and met the head of year. He didn't deny the problem either.

Yes, but predominately in the south east. it is having an effect, but not a good one. it is preventing a lot of schemes from moving forward; and no the answer is not cutting the red tape. A lot of the approvals are necessary (and I am saying this from the private sector side).
I would suggest the cuts have been in the wrong place; or have been too 'cut x%' without actually thinking it through of what the effects are.
We do actually need a public sector in the country you know.

The school are doing nothing about it. I, and several other parents have hired private tutors. I have raised the matter with the head of year and he simply will NOT engage with it. Others have also tried, with no effect. So we will get our kids through the lack of teacher effort. Honestly, its easier to do it this way than to fight the battle through the school/LEA.
Having run a PTA I have very little respect now for most teachers and even less for LEAs. The waste is hoorendous, and that more than anything else is why there is a shortage of money at some schools.
I do acknowledge that you are doing what you feel is best, and good luck to you for that. But in reality, thia is how the wasteful practices perpetuate. The LEAs are so political, they cut the things they know that you, as parents will fight tooth and nail to keep, and for which you will blame the Government as opposed to the real culprit - the LEA ! Maybe your good lady wife is one of the good teachers, but I have met too many who see the children in their charge as nowt more than cannon fodder in support of their own political ideologies.

No, but in my experience, I found that in the lower sets you did get lower attendance.

No, its not a Tory wet dream. Why would it be? What a Tory wants is that for every million pounds the country spends on education the country gets one million pounds worth of value, effort and delivery from all those involved in the provision of education services, be they teachers, assistants, policy makers, LEAs etc

In my time as chair of the PTA we raised tens of thousands of pounds to support essential schools services, from buying paper, paying for photocopiers, computers and even for a while paying the salary of a teacher. The easy place to place the blame for the fact that all this effort was necessary was the Government. After all, as the LEA constantly told us, they were suffering cuts and squeezes. We all had to dig deep. And then I, with my private sector business head on, went to meetings at county hall with the LEA, and do you know what I found? Waste and cynical manipulation on a massive scale. Non essential budgets were NOT cut, whilst essential ones , like teacher salaries, were. Why? Because, as was explained to me by the labour deputy chair, there were no votes in cutting stuff that parents were unlikely to complain about! Yes, really, our kids educations were being used as a vote gathering exercise for Labour. They were clever too. State subsidies that were available were not taken up, thereby widening the deficit further. Services like school meals were priced incredibly low ( 15 pence? ) and the shortfall ( 23 million) was taken from essential budgets. When I pointed out that most people could afford 40p per day to feed their kid, and that the poorest would be protected by the (state funded) free school meals provision and that by raising prices to the middle class to 40p we could liberate millions to pay for the teachers we needed I was told there was no votes for Labour in such a policy. The middle classes needed to be angry about the "cuts". I see the same/similar patterns happening today. Local government, especially labour/libdem local government is rarely honest in how it allocates resources. Tory wet dream tha yu have to pay? Not at all. More like a nightmare as yet again, the responsible members of society step in to pay the price for the manipulation of our education system and the deliberate perpetuation of waste for political gain.