Surviving or Thriving? School

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Our families and pupils, I think there's always been a cost of living crisis. So this current economic crisis just makes it a lot harder for them and for us as a school. Teacher to teacher, we are trying to support each other. Help with things like shared toiletries, shared food if you need a lunch, if you need some help just with general budgeting. We can share lifts with each other, for example, as well. I'm walking around regularly turning lights off.

Teachers are assisting with turning fans off when they're leaving rooms. It's probably saved about 15% on the bill, say, this year with just the changes we've made. The cost of living crisis has had an impact on almost everyone in the country. So far in this series, we've met households and farms who've told us in depth about the challenges they're facing. We've heard from some that are thriving, while others are barely surviving.

But I wanted to find out what the cost of living crisis means for the education of our children. What impact has it had on our schools? This is Moneybox. Surviving or thriving? Hi, welcome to Oasis Academy Half Am Out. Thank you very much for having us. Who's this stern Victorian lady on the wall? Yeah, so this picture of Emmeline Plankhurst here, actually a suffragette fought for women's rights.

She actually opened the building. There's a plaque outside. It's a real special link to Manchester for us. It's actually used as a hospital, I believe, in World War I. So it's a historic school. What's the make-up of the school now? We're a really diverse community here. We're just out of the city centre, about a mile and a half in North Manchester. We're around 490 pupils. We have 32 languages spoken in school.

Also, we have 62% of our children are entitled to free school meals, which is well above the national average. Would you like to follow us down while we walk around? Yeah, I can smell school dinners. Schools are hit hard by rising prices in a number of different ways.

They have their own rising bills and maintenance costs. They're employers whose staff may be struggling. They're community hubs with parents often seeking support with their financial challenges. And, of course, their purpose is to educate children. including children whose home lives have been made more difficult by the crisis. My name is Sally Herbert. I'm the principal at Oasis Academy Harper Mount. So before the cost of living crisis, how would you have described your school?

financially? We've always been in quite a stable position financially as a school because we have a large number of children who are classes disadvantaged, which does bring in additional funding from the government. So we've been able to have the luxury of having additional support staff sports coaches additional clubs running in school

So we feel really lucky, that's how we used to be. Unfortunately at the moment we are really having to look at some of those things and our budget really closely and some of those things that we used to have in place are now no longer there. The financial position that we're in at school currently is very...

much along the lines of trying to survive on what we have with the kind of cost of living crisis and the impact that that's had on schools such as like the energy bills and see where we can be a little bit more flexible in our approach to how we spend. Have you lost any of your staff to just higher paid jobs? Yeah, we have actually. Unfortunately, over the last 12 months or so, we have lost.

for members of our support staff and we've not been in a position to replace those members of staff so we're looking down the apprentice route and we're trying to look at how we can maybe change people's roles so they might work in a dual role across the academy.

Do you think that the cost of living is having an impact on some of your pupils? Definitely. We know our families are finding the cost of living really difficult. More and more so parents come to us and they ask us about support with things that they previously wouldn't have done. So many families come to us in regards to housing. There's lots of temporary accommodation in the area and it's not uncommon for a family.

to come to us and talk to us about that they've been given a final eviction date and time and they come in real crisis a parent hadn't told us she was going to be evicted you know that very same day we went you know with two cars from school we helped that mum pack up a house and take her essentials there and then with the landlord on the street and you know we had to take that mum there and then enter some emergency accommodation.

And it's not uncommon for us then to have to really support that family with keeping their place at the school. You know, we may pick them up on the other side of Manchester and bring that child to school for a number of days until they perhaps secure some better accommodation. Did you get any extra funding to help with that? No. I would estimate probably one to two children in each class are living in temporary accommodation or homeless.

We heard in our first programme about the pressure that rising costs have put on families, and Sally's school has responded to that. Her team offer extra food for their children at breakfast clubs, but they've also started offering new kinds of help.

This year we've run some new initiatives, one is a Think English Cafe where we're trying to invite lots of parents and trying to create a real cohesive environment where parents are able to kind of talk about their culture and how it makes our school really unique and special.

diverse setting we started it small and then we had more and more families saying oh you know could I bring a baby so it's now quite flexible it's under threes and we have more and more families coming each week it's also a safe warm space so in the winter months for

example it was great that families were able to come in with the cost of heating they were able to come and stay here for you know an hour two hours it runs for around 90 minutes they were able to get a hot drink they were able to get a piece of toast and biscuits and there's a real community feel to that and the parents are ending up running these sessions themselves now which is really lovely. And do you think the cost of living crisis is what's driven some of that take up?

I think it will have encouraged. I think, you know, if you're doing the school run in the morning and then you're going back and thinking, I need the heating on for my baby that day as soon as I get home, I think you would be encouraged to come and just stay here for a couple of hours in the morning at drop-off.

Sally had work to do, so I went to meet some parents. My name's Michelle and my son is 11. My name's Louise and my daughter's 11. My name's Aisha and my son is 7. So you're all part of the school community. What's the best thing about this school?

The teachers, they communicate with you when your child is upset or in trouble, so they're really nice to us all. If you need any help for your children or if you've got any problems at home, which is they help you or help your children out. Very supportive. Do any of you come to any of the other events here, like the Stay and Play or the Talk English Cafe? Yes, I bring my friend's little baby girl here for the Stay and Play so that she can start to learn and be around other children.

Are you surprised that a school that's aimed, obviously, at school-aged kids offers something like that? No, I actually think it's worthwhile because other mums, even if they're young mums and... They have a baby, they don't have places to go and it's good to be able to reach out and have other mums to be able to communicate with, making your day a bit easier. If you were talking to a new parent at the school, what kind of help would you tell them they can approach the school for?

My little boy has difficulties. They have helped me to keep up with quite a lot of things and put lots of new things in place to support him. Would it surprise you that some parents have been coming to the school to get advice on things like being evicted or struggling?

with their energy bills? Did you know that the school has been offering that kind of advice and support to parents? I do know a lot of parents who are struggling a lot and to know that they can come and speak to this school, that'll be better for them. I have to admit the cost of living crisis is quite deep at the moment.

My son only eats fruit and salad and vegetables, and the price for just the smallest little punnet is starting to really make mass impact. We can't make our children healthy and be able to support our homes. We're not rich. No, I totally agree. My mortgage is £100 a month. It's gone up. And you've just got to keep, you know, cutting back in other areas when, you know, eventually there'll be nothing left.

Is there a particular area where you're feeling the pinch now when it comes to bringing up the kids? My son, he's growing a lot, so he has to use clothes that he's already had for a long time instead of getting new clothes over and over and over. So I struggle there more.

Three of us have got children going up to high school, and we're lucky to know that the first blazer we're going to get is going to be free, and the first tie is free, which we're grateful, because blazers can be anything between £25 to...

£35. I know when I measured my little girl, I've measured it big for her to grow into it. But luckily at this school, they have spare uniforms that you can come in and buy, you know, like secondhand, which you're grateful for because they're just so expensive at the moment. Do you think the school is quite mindful of the fact that a lot of people don't have much money?

Oh, yes, definitely. I agree. Even when they do little trips and stuff, they're trying to reduce the cost. I know they're going to the cinema next week and they bring their own packed lunch. So they're trying to do as much as they can on a little budget because I know that everyone's struggling.

because obviously if we can't pay for stuff for trips, they've got to pay. So it is very hard. I'm sure the school can feel it at the moment as well. Yeah, my little boy's going on a trip to the Jewish Museum. Again, if you're struggling to pay it, you can pay it in like smaller amounts or give donations as well. As busy mums, is it a relief to know that your children have had a good meal here at the school every day?

It is a great relief to know that they've eaten something in here. It saves money as well, but for me it's more of the benefit on the child. What have you had for lunch? I've had roast chicken. Did you eat your vegetables? Yes. That's healthy. Chicken curry. Oh, chicken curry. That sounds nice. Do you eat lots of fruit and vegetables as well? Yes. Yeah, very much. Me and my sister, we love tangerines. And bananas. you

In England and Scotland, every child at a state school gets a free lunch for the first three years, no matter what their household income. In Wales, the scheme is gradually expanding to all primary school children, while in Northern Ireland, universal free school meals are not offered. But children on lower incomes get free school meals throughout their education. And at this school, that's more than six in ten of their pupils.

Right, let's come out to a slightly quieter spot and talk about the food. I mean, that looked like a really, really healthy lunch. Yeah, I mean, as you can see from probably talking to the children, the school dinners are really, really popular. And there was that whole extra tray of veg and fruit and bread, things they could just go and add to their plates.

Yeah, so we do have the salad bar and a fruit bar, which we encourage children to take as much as they can. So what kind of impact have rising prices had on the cost of providing these meals? It's been a real challenge if we've worked with the kitchen to try and think about how can we still provide the menu that we want to with the cost of prices of meats, for example. Everything has really risen. And what kind of things are you doing?

And we're just trying to think really cleverly about looking in a two-week span, for example, what we can provide over those two weeks where we're still giving the children what they need. Trying to really reduce food waste, for example. So our children, when they come in in the morning as part of their morning...

routine when they answer in the register they also pick their dinner so they will choose between the vegetarian the meat choice or a sandwich and in the winter it's a jacket potato you know just so it's another warm option what you spend on school dinners. Presumably that would be one of the last things you try and squeeze.

Yeah, it's obviously really important as children come to school that they do get that healthy meal during the school day. And really, you know, we've thought as a school about extras. We provide a breakfast. We have fruit provision for children at playtime. So it is really important for us. Children need to be fed to be able to learn. So who's providing your school meals? Is it all one company?

We do have our meals provided through one service. However, just the additional things, what we have done is try to access funding for free breakfast clubs. We've gone to Kellogg's, for example, to apply for funding so we can put on a nurture breakfast. Corporate funding can clearly help, but I wondered if Sally could raise more money locally to help the school thrive.

When we're doing fundraising, it's small, it's little and it's often, so we don't have very big fundraising events happening at one time. We have some children in year six who are trying to raise money for their end-of-year events. What about local organisations?

businesses do they help with fundraising? We're finding that a little bit harder and harder so one thing for example is we used to have a £500 donated to us to help with uniforms one of the local churches was able to do that but unfortunately that church now isn't able to do that. So actually it's finding that £500 from elsewhere, but actually we're now not finding that we've got other people able to kind of help.

Sally's school is one of 52 Oasis Academy schools across England. She introduced me to the man who helps her balance the books. My name's Nick Hewitt and I'm the Regional Finance Manager for Oasis in the North West. So how many schools are you responsible for the finances of? Currently that's 10. Has that got harder in the cost of living crisis? Definitely, yeah. The amount of income that's coming in is definitely dropping. The costs that we're facing are going up.

on almost a daily basis. Are you having some really challenging conversations with the principals you work with? Yeah, in particular the last 12 months that's got more and more difficult in our academies where we're having to look to save just to make the books balance. Are they all making similar savings? Not necessarily. You know, the schools tend to staff a little bit differently.

you know we have to look at each one individually so we've recently just embarked on a huge project to install led lighting in all our academies which we hope will have some significant savings where are the cutbacks coming in the schools that you work with things like teaching resources for the classrooms may have to be reduced sometimes the types of consultancy that we use things like educational psychologists we might have to not use them to the same extent so

all of it would have a negative impact on the level of education we can deliver. Do your head teachers get quite frustrated with you? Not necessarily with me, but I think they'll perhaps see that they've got more children in the school this year, things should be a lot better, but invariably all that does is help us get a bit close to breaking even rather than meaning we've got extra money to spend.

Are you forecasting what it might mean for the budgets over the next few years? We forecast for three years. There's obviously a lot of speculation in there. We tend to make general assumptions about the fact that pay will increase. And I guess we just hope that the government will match those increases with their funding. What do you think the future looks like for the 10 schools that you support? I think it's going to be a really challenging time unless we see...

quite a significant increase in funding that schools receive, then things are going to be very difficult going forward. My name is Clevis, I'm ten years old. I want to be like a footballer because you can earn lots of money. You can even donate the money to the schools that need it. My name is Sabrina. I'm 10 years old. I want to work at Unisip. My name is Taylor. I'm 11 years old.

I want to be like an eco warrior because I think saving the planet matters a lot. My name is Flea, I am ten years old and I would like to be a heart surgeon. As well as having high aspirations for their future, these pupils at Harper Mount Academy also have big plans for helping out the school with some fundraising.

Me and Filaya have decided maybe we could do a slushy style at the school and we could do many different flavours. What kind of flavours? Lemonade, strawberry, blueberry, just a bunch of fruit flavours. We've done this thing before in our school where we brought books to school and then when they did we'd done a book swap and we might have some leftovers and then we sell them. And what was your idea?

I wanted to make my own homemade ice lollies because I have this ice lolly maker. You can put juice in there, you put it in the freezer and freeze it and then you have an ice lolly ready. For you to like, enjoy and eat. That sounds amazing. Would you buy her ice lollies? Of course. Of course, no matter the cost. What would you charge for your ice lollies?

Now I'm not trying to make it impossible to get these, so I'm just going to sell them for 50p. How many ice lollies do you think you'd have to make? Probably be making about 150 ice lollies. And he wants two, right? Of course I do. So 151 ice lollies at 50 pence each. Come on, who's going to do the maths? I got the answer. £75.50. Brilliant. Well done. Mathematician of the future.

OK. Is there anything you'd want to spend money on in the school? We're trying to build a play shed for all the little children and other equipments for them. So I would want to spend money on toys and resources and equipment. I'd extend the play area for people to play football or basketball or maybe just have some fun to play with toys there. But the construction would take a long, long time though.

We've walked through the school, we're now outside the building. For an inner city school, we're looking to have such a large space. It is quite concrete heavy, which we would really want to have a little bit more green space if we could. We've been really prioritising different areas at a time to try and really regenerate the space and try and have as much play as possible out here at lunchtimes and plates.

But there is loads of stuff to do. There's games painted all over the ground. Yeah, we're trying to be really clever with our floor markings. And this is Stuart Beard, who's our caretaker. Stuart, very nice to meet you. So it must be a lot of work.

inside the school and out here in the playground? Yeah, there's been a lot of changes in the last 12 months that I've been here. All the lighting being changed, changed shifts to accommodate for the heating, turned the heating down, obviously because of the budget going through the roof.

Regarding the areas outside, we've got an area just behind you. It's a rubber surface. We're having problems getting put right, to be honest with you, but I think it's because of budgets. Well, can you show it to me? Let's walk over here and have a look. Yeah, we're standing on a rubber crumb.

area where the children play it's quite bouncy and for the kids who don't hurt themselves when they fall what's happening on the sides where it meets the concrete with the heat it's shrinking back it's in need of repair it's been in need of repair for the past 12 months

It's obviously funding, like it is with everything else. We do have a natural area at the back, which we obviously can't get funding for neither, and that would be a fantastic area for the kids to go, you know, to pick up environmental issues with animals. Tell me about other changes that the school has made to try and bring down their bills. I'm walking around regularly turning lights off.

Teachers are assisting with turning fans off when they're leaving rooms. It's probably saved about 15% on the bill this year with just the changes we've made. Tell me about when the schools open. The school opens from 7am. It used to open at 6am in the morning. So why the later start time? It's the coldest period. We save an hour every day, 365 days a year. It's a big saving.

I wondered how common these challenges are for schools, so I got in touch with Laura McInerney, who co-founded and runs a daily survey of 10,000 teachers called TeacherTap. Most primary schools are facing quite challenging circumstances at the moment when it comes to budgets. And of course, then all schools are seeing across their communities that there is increasing levels of child poverty. and that it is getting harder and harder to keep staff. And how does the picture vary across the UK?

The Four Nations are a little different on this, and Scotland in particular is the outlier. So they've not had an increase in people numbers like England and Northern Ireland had, which means they have put more cash in, but that's gone even further. So they've not got the same budget constraints.

Wales also hasn't had population growth, but they've had tighter budgets. So it's a bit closer there. And then England and Northern Ireland are the ones where it's been really tight. And is that staff recruitment and retention issue across the whole of the UK? Well, those countries that have had the big population increases, England and Northern Ireland, they've got particular issues at the moment, but there are issues in Wales as well.

And for those staff who are on lower wages, for example, support staff, there has been an increase in the minimum wage, which has meant that schools have got to now... cover higher rates for those staff but also we have increasingly seen other sectors for example retail, supermarkets, virtual assistants all coming for that staff that previously were in those schools because they can offer the same level of

flexible working, they can offer time, time only working, and they're offering more money. And then for the teachers, it's not just about their salaries, it's also things like commuting costs. So we know that well over 80% of teachers drive to schools.

some of them quite long distances, especially if those schools are in rural areas. Now, the cost of fuel has really played into whether or not teachers want to stay or even can stay in those schools. So are secondary schools facing the same kind of... Financial difficulties. Some secondary schools are in a slightly better financial position, often because they're larger and they were able to cushion during the pandemic more easily the money they were spending.

So Natasha, where are you taking me? I am taking you to class nine. They should have had a nice lunchtime. They'll probably be in quite high spirits, but we'll get them ready for the afternoon. PE, history and reading. I bet PE is good. I bet that burns off some energy. Oh, it will. For them and me both. So this is your class? This is class nine. Class nine, say good afternoon. Good afternoon.

I'm borrowing your teacher, is that okay? I'm Natasha Brown, a class teacher at Oasis Harper Mount. And what age are you teaching? Between eight, nine, around that age. How long have you been in teaching? Almost ten years now at the school. How does the cost of living crisis that we're going through compare to previous years at the school? The cost of living is really affecting everybody. It's even affecting us as teaching staff.

We have a little scheme here where we can help each other, help out with lunches, and we often help our children in a discreet way. If they need food, if they need help with uniforms, they can get support from us because it is really needed. What kind of help are you providing?

teacher to teacher help with things like shared toiletries that we can access here shared food if you need a lunch if you need some help if you need support there's someone on hand to talk to help you with your finances this to help you just with general budgeting and we can share lifts with each other for example as well. And is that kind of help absolutely needed to get you all through this? It's really necessary it really is. What about the impact?

on your class when you see the kids coming in and some of their families might be struggling more because of this what are you seeing in the classroom? We work a lot with our iPads in our school but we know that families who have several children can struggle to charge up those iPads overnight because that can impact their bills.

Food is really expensive. Some children may need some extra snacks. As a school, we try and be on hand to provide that for them without there being any stigma or any shame attached to it. Have any children in your class... tried to talk to you about the cost of living or about the kind of pressures they might be under.

The children in our class, they don't really talk about it as a cost of living crisis. They just talk about the struggles that they may have. They say, oh, you know, dad's working an extra shift. because we need some more money, or they might say, we can't afford to charge my iPad up, or we haven't been able to go to the shop yet, because we haven't got our money in.

things like that but they try and stay really positive and upbeat and it's hard because we want to make it open and for everybody to discuss those things but people do sometimes want to keep things private. So we're trying to encourage people to talk. And if there are difficulties, let them know that it is everybody at every level who is struggling. It's very clear as well that none of you here are willing to compromise.

On the kids' education? Oh no, the kids' education is a priority. Would you have gone into teaching ten years ago if you'd known how tough things might be now? Definitely not now. Despite the struggles then? What is it that keeps you coming through that school door and teaching your class? The children. It's the children. They matter to us so much. We want to put as much into them as we can and it just makes it worthwhile.

The team here at Harper Mount are clearly working incredibly hard to ensure the children in their care succeed at school, despite the challenges to their budget and despite the growing financial challenges some of these children are experiencing at home. I asked Laura McInerney what's next for our schools. The people who do this job are unbelievable. We see in the data...

all the time, the level of motivation and passion and the hours that they are putting in. The question is simply whether it's going to be sustainable, especially when there are other industries that are starting to pick away at the workforce and do so very quickly. If we see the cost of living crisis continuing, prices continuing to rise or stay high, what does the next 12 months look like for schools in this country?

It will mean diminishing quality. It will be a less pleasant place with less going on in schools because they simply won't be able to cover everything that they did before. A Department for Education spokesperson said... Next year, school funding will be at its highest level in history, totaling nearly £60 billion.

Thousands of schools are receiving significant additional funding as part of the extra £2 billion of investment we are providing over this year and next. We also announced an additional £525 million in 2023-24. and £900 million in 2024-25 to support schools with the Teachers Pay Award. By home time, I definitely felt like I had gone back to school. Headteacher Sally has what feels like three full-time jobs, managing her team, her students and providing support to her school community.

I finished by asking the question I've put to everyone in this series. Is the school surviving or thriving? Financially, I would say that we're surviving, definitely. Although I think intellectually, I would say we're thriving. What makes you proud as a headteacher? I'm really proud of the community that we have here. We're well above national with our attendance figures. Children feel safe and children want to be here.

Last year actually our outcomes for children moving on to high school were above national so we were really, really pleased. What does the future look like for your school? It feels as though we're going to go from strength to strength. We're very, very lucky to have a team of really passionate staff. We've got a community who really pull together. Yeah, the future's exciting.

Hold something. A holiday in Dubai. The missing Korean telecommunications tycoon was found dead this morning. Takes a deadly turn. A guy you've never seen before offers you ten grand to look after an envelope and you take it. Tell nobody. Not even your girlfriend, okay? There's something I need to tell you. It'll save a lot of lives if you help us. This is all a terrible mistake. We just want to go home. We don't want to... Shut up! Available now on BBC Sounds.

A Vivint home is a smarter home. Vivint lets you keep an eye on your kids from anywhere, so it's a smarter way to care. Because Vivint adjusts your thermostat when it knows you're out, it's a smarter way to save. When Vivint guards your packages from Prowlers, it's a smarter way to protect. And when you can lock the doors and dim the lights for movie night with a single tap, well, that's a smarter way to live. To get the smarter home system that just gets you,

Go to Vivint.com or call 1-855-4-VIVINT. Live intelligently.