Parents 'so worried' about plan to cut teaching assistants

Abi Griffiths and Stephanie Clements both have children at Cheddar Grove School

Parents say they are "filled with fear" about a primary school's plans to cut five teaching assistants.

They say the changes at the school in Bristol would affect their children's education, particularly for those with additional needs, and could pose safety problems.

The 470-pupil Cheddar Grove Primary School in Bedminster Down has opened a staff consultation on its plan to cut 13.1 full-time equivalent teaching assistants to 8.3.

Futura Learning Partnership, which runs the school and 25 others in the South West, said standards would not drop if the cuts went ahead.

Stephanie Clements has two children at Cheddar Grove and said she was "heartbroken" by the proposals.

"I'm so worried about my children's future," she said. "My youngest has a prosthetic eye because she's blind. She's not entitled to a one-to-one with a teaching assistant.

"I am filled with fear wondering if one teacher will be able to help with her extra needs.

"I love our school, me and my husband went there and I don't want to have to send my children somewhere else."

The school for children aged three to 11 is rated good by Ofsted.

Gary Schlick, CEO of Futura, said funding from the government in the last three years had not met additional costs at the school.

He said: "There are vacancies at other schools in south Bristol and any colleagues that wanted to move, we would really support and welcome that. We aren't anticipating any redundancies.

"There are still a number of teaching assistants that will be in Cheddar Grove and the school determines how they allocate those into classes.

"Normally I would anticipate that there would be teaching assistants in reception classes."

Many parents at the school do not approve of the proposed cuts

Mum-of-three Abi Griffiths, who is also a primary school teacher, said she was concerned about the pressure on teachers at Cheddar Grove.

"I cannot even imagine teaching without teaching assistants. It actually scares me.

"I don't think they will be able to keep up the high standards they've had at the school.

"The children won't be able to thrive and the staff won't be able to pick up on SEND (special educational needs and disabilities)."

She said one of her children was dyslexic and would need extra support, adding: "I've considered moving my youngest to another school but it makes me feel so sad."

Wider trend

Josh Connor, a trade union organiser for Bristol Unison, said: "We have seen budgets being strained but I personally haven't seen anything this dramatic that affects staff so heavily."

William Brown from the NEU trade union, speaking to Radio Bristol on Tuesday, said the proposals reflected a wider trend of diminishing government funding since 2010.

"A lot of schools have already lost loads of extra provision to what they had," he said.

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government had "inherited a challenging fiscal context" but added that its Budget "protected key education priorities including core funding for schools".

The spokesperson said: "Alongside investment, we have been clear that we will support leaders to use funding as efficiently as possible including by offering schools a suite of existing and new productivity initiatives to help them reduce costs and manage their budgets."