265% increase in Bury’s Classes with over 30 pupils

Investigations by Liberal Democrat councillors have revealed a shocking 265% increase in the number of class sizes over 30 in Bury’s secondary schools in just one year.

Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Pickstone asked: “Could the Leader update members on the number of secondary school children in Bury who are taught in classes of more than 30 children, and how this compares to previous years?

The answer was: “There are a total of 63 classes of thirty or more pupils spread across all but two of the boroughs secondary schools. There is no statutory limit on KS3/4 class sizes and it is, therefore, a matter for each school to determine. This is a significant increase on last year’s figures of 23 classes in excess of 30 from the same number of secondary schools.”

Councillor Pickstone said: “There might not be a statutory limit to class sizes in secondary schools, but it is not difficult to work out that a larger class size gives children less teacher attention for each child.

Schools across Bury have been forced to reduce staffing – teachers and teaching assistants – largely because costs have increased while funding has not kept up.

Education is a vital part of giving all children the best possible start in life. Lack of money is having an impact on children’s education”.

Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers said: “The increase in class sizes over 30 is one of the many consequences of cutting school funding. More and more schools are only able to balance their budgets by cutting staff and forming larger classes. Both primary and secondary schools will be put under increasing budgetary pressures to look at ways to ‘make do’ and the Department for Education recommends increasing class size as a way for schools to save money. The DfE describes this as an ‘efficiency saving’”.

Mental Health plan doesn’t go far enough

Health organisations and the Liberal Democrats have criticised the Government’s announcement on mental health NHS staffing shortages as inadequate.

The Government announced plans yesterday to recruit an extra 5,000 staff into mental health services by 2020-21, but many have critised the existing crisis in filling jobs, and the lack of any new funding to pay for these posts.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb said: “This is a government that is all bark and no bite. We need to be serious about mental health but all this government has done is pluck a number out of thin air. This government has built a reputation for big announcements which then fail to materialise, this has all the markings of another one. Time and again we see bold announcements while services continue to struggle to cope.

Jeremy Hunt called for thousands of extra GPs to be in place by 2020, yet so far he has overseen a shrinking of the workforce. They then quietly dropped the commitment in their manifesto. And now he has already been forced to admit that he hasn’t got the money for his latest plans.”

 


Prof Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said 570 extra consultants had been promised in the plans.
“You would expect to see a consultant if you had cancer and the same applies for mental health. The biggest challenge to creating robust mental health services is the workforce. I am very supportive of this strategy which starts to tackle that problem.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “There is already a dangerous lack of workforce planning and accountability and this report is unable to provide detail on how the ambitions will be met. It is clear the government will need to work hard just to get back to the number of specialist staff working in mental health services in 2010. Under this government, there are 5,000 fewer mental health nurses and that goes some way to explaining why patients are being failed.”