Today I have challenged Bournemouth’s two Tory MPs to step up to the plate for our children here in Bournemouth. Recent figures published by the NUT and ATL suggest our schools are about to be hit extremely hard by Conservative education cuts.
Here’s the text of my email to both MPs. I also copied it to the Bournemouth Daily Echo so it will be interesting to see if they report it.
“Dear Tobias and Conor
Following the launch of the second phase of the Government’s Schools National Funding Formula consultation, it has become clear that Bournemouth schools stand to lose a significant level of funding by 2019 compared to the current arrangements. Calculations based on the Government’s own data by the National Union of Teachers and ATL show that schools in Bournemouth stand to lose £5.3million by 2019 – the equivalent of 142 full time teachers. Whilst I appreciate that these figures are a “best guess” based on the policy statements released by government so far, as a teacher I find them incredibly disturbing.
Under these proposals it appears that every primary and secondary school in Bournemouth will be significantly worse off by 2019.
Can you provide assurances that you will be engaging with this consultation, with local head teachers and with your constituents to ensure that funding for Bournemouth schools will be protected? As Bournemouth’s MPs I would like to be assured that you will each be “going into bat ” for our children.
I would be grateful for an update on your activity relating to local schools’ funding and your understanding of the impact upon our schools at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Dunn
Bournemouth Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesperson for Bournemouth West ”
