Waste Not Want More | What would you spend the money on?

#WasteNotWantMore

Every year, over £500 million is spent on recruitment agency fees in public sector schools alone.

£0

is spent on agency fees

£0

That’s £30,000 per school

This much-needed money is being diverted away from school resources, staff and the children and young people in their care.

The system is failing schools, who are faced with an ever-challenging funding shortfall and lack of available resource to prevent this.

#WasteNotWantMore

Every year, over £500 million is spent on recruitment agency fees in public sector schools alone.

£0

is spent on agency fees

£0

per school

This much-needed money is being diverted away from school resources, staff and the children and young people in their care.

The system is failing schools, who are faced with an ever-challenging funding shortfall and lack of available resource to prevent this.

#WasteNotWantMore

#WasteNotWantMore

£30,000 would provide one school with a full-time teacher or one and a half, full-time TAs and 25 computers.

£150,000 would provide five schools with two full-time teachers, three full-time TAs and a mini bus or one teacher, one TA, 75 computers, seven interactive white boards and 4000 library books.

#WasteNotWantMore

£30,000 would provide one school with a full-time teacher or one and a half, full-time TAs and 25 computers.

£150,000 would provide five schools with two full-time teachers, three full-time TAs and a mini bus or one teacher, one TA, 75 computers, seven interactive white boards and 4000 library books.

What would you spend the money on?

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

If you had £500 Million to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

In today’s economic climate, every pound wasted is a pound too much. So we’re asking leading thinkers in education, school leaders, teachers, parents and pupils what they would do to reinvest this financial loss.

What would you spend the money on?

What can be done?

We believe that a consolidation of the education recruitment market will help control expenditure, increase flexibility for workers and raise the overall standard of service from recruitment providers.

We want schools to become empowered to take control of their recruitment provision by ensuring they are aware in advance of the costs involved when recruiting, and have the confidence to actively seek out competitive offers and alternative options to ensure best value and quality is achieved.

Schools should be given the support to pool resources between groups of schools for collaborative on-demand provision, experiment with new flexible working and job share models and share best practice.

Recruitment providers and leaders in education need to explore how technology can help introduce greater flexibility and fluidity into the labour market.

More attention must be paid to the soaring levels of teacher stress and pressures of increasing workload to help attract more entrants to the profession and retain existing teachers.

Legislation should be adjusted for education specifically to make employment rules simpler, fairer and more fit for purpose for the specific dynamics and recruitment cycles of the sector.

In doing this, we can reinvest lost funds, improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession and ensure teachers are well supported in the job they love for the long term. This ultimately improves outcomes for the children and young people of our future.

What would you spend the money on?

Read the Responses

Loic Menzies

Chief Executive, Centre for Education and Youth (CfEY)

Loic Menzies has worked in education research, evaluation and policy for the last ten years and is interested in how different aspects of education, youth services and wider society shape young people’s transitions to adulthood.

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

If I had this additional money, I would probably use it to find a well trained and skilled family liaison/outreach member of staff, preferably from the school’s local community who could work closely with families of pupils who are struggling. They should have a small budget to direct towards specialist support such as speech and language support or counselling where this would not otherwise be available. Ideally they might use an approach like the ‘family entrepreneur’ model that we’ve been studying in Newcastle. https://cfey.org/2019/06/preventing-youth-homelessness-through-family-support-a-place-to-call-home/

If you had £0.5bn to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

When it comes to money across the system I’d look for ways of reducing the burden on teachers as we know that teacher workload is still a massive issue. In my experience, one of the most frustrating sources of this is when you suddenly have to cover a lesson at short notice and lose a free period where you’d planned to catch up on all sorts of jobs (or have a breather). While I believe schools should have autonomy over how they spend money and allocate resources, I’d strongly encourage school leaders to consider using the money to resource additional staff capacity in the form of an in-house cover supervisor who could reduce the cover load on teachers whilst ensuring there’s a familiar face in the room who understands the schools’ culture and systems.

Chetan Sood

Head of Operations, Teacher Booker

Che believes a great education is where it all begins – it’s crucial to ensure all children have access to inspirational teachers and support staff who can empower them to realise their potential.

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

I believe that the critical resource that any school has are its people, so I would spend £30,000 ensuring that that school’s entire network feel supported, motivated and empowered in every aspect of their working life. That means plenty of CPD and training, wellbeing initiatives and ensuring fair pay for contingent and temporary staff.

If you had £0.5bn to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

I think that improved systems of knowledge sharing around best practice could be beneficial to schools across the UK. Breaking down geographical constraints could be really powerful, so a school in Suffolk can quickly learn from an innovative initiative in a school in Yorkshire – even incorporating input from abroad and from other sectors. Technology is part of that – we live in an age where information can spread incredibly quickly, and I think that over the next few years new ways to categorise and make digestible the huge body of knowledge related to education provision across the world will emerge. There’s so much great stuff out there! Simplifying the flow of information could help break down geographical and resource-related disparities in provision and foster a collaborative and progressive culture across the sector. So I think a serious top-level commitment and investment in developing that would be great.

Year 6 Teacher

Primary school in Berkshire

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

We have recently lost our specialist support workers which is a huge loss to those children who require both emotional and academic support. As a result more pressure is being placed on class teachers and already overstretched TAs.

If you had £0.5bn to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

More secondary schools. In our county there are many primary schools, all at capacity, but very few secondary/grammar schools to attend. The issue is only going to get worse with large housing developments being built. We run the risk of there being little or no choice or provision for year six pupils moving forward.

Year 9 Teacher

Secondary school in Buckinghamshire

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

Simple – more teachers! Too many times teachers are having to cover specialist subjects with little or no knowledge. Of course we are happy to help our colleagues but it doesn’t help our pupils.

If you had £0.5bn to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

Support teachers and make teaching an attractive career again. Out of my seven teacher trainee friends, only myself and one other are still teaching! More needs to be done to retain and attract new staff – workload, wellbeing and pay need to be addressed fast.

Edith-May

Pupil, aged 8, South West England

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

If I had £30,000 to spend on my school I would buy a slide on the field, a climbing frame for the field, a neck cushion and comfy pillow and chair for the teacher, a charity dog to help poorly children, a stress ball on the end of our pencils, a time out chair, a special helper to help me write when I get stuck, a soft pencil that says our names on and pancake day every Wednesday.

Sarah Mason

Parent, Somerset

If you had £30,000 to spend in a school next year, what would you spend it on? And why?

I would ensure there was a dedicated support worker to help those children who need additional support both mentally and academically.

If you had £0.5bn to invest in the education sector next year, what – in your opinion – would make the most difference?

I would ensure there was more support for children’s mental health, invest in making sure there was an on-site swimming pool at every school, buying books and giving teachers more time to develop core skills with less reliance on technology.

What would you spend the money on?