MP Speaks Up for Local Schools

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 24th Mar 2004

Speaking yesterday in a Westminster Hall debate on 'Redundancies in Primary Schools', Annette Brooke MP called upon the government to provide additional funding to Local Education Authorities, particularly Poole to counter the crisis locally.

Summing up on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Education team, Annette Brooke MP raised the problems in Poole and the South West saying:

"Poole Local Education Authority remains the lowest funded primary school authority in the country. Many local primary schools are predicting compulsory redundancies this year because the percentage increase in funding on top of an already inadequate budget has just not lifted schools back up to the position they were just a couple of years ago."

On the crisis nationally, she said:

"Last year's settlement is where things started to go badly wrong. It has been accepted as a crisis that saw hundreds of teachers made redundant across the country, with many temporary contracts for both teachers and classroom assistants not renewed.

"One survey shored that one in five primary schools increased their class size as a result, which is the opposite direction to that we wish to go. Falling numbers of children in primary schools too has impacted on teacher numbers, but this should be used as an opportunity to teach smaller classes - not larger. Even areas with increasing numbers of children are having to cut staff so something clearly, is wrong with the system."

"I do not want to hear from the Minister that everything in the country is hunky dory, as it is not."