A primary school in Prime Minister Theresa May’s constituency is so short of cash due to Government funding cuts it is now ‘begging for toilet paper’.
St Edmund Campion Catholic Primary School sent a desperate email to parents with a link to their Amazon ‘Wish List’ page, asking for them to buy essential items it cannot afford.
The school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, has received devastating cuts in the last year – including losing out on a £70,000 grant – and is uncertain it will be able to operate after the next two years.
Parents are growing increasingly concerned and one says she was ‘shaken and nearly in tears’ after discovering the school is ‘begging for toilet paper’.
St Edmund Campion Catholic Primary School sent a desperate email to parents with a link (above) to its Amazon ‘Wish List’ page, asking for them to buy essential items it cannot afford. The school is in Maidenhead – Prime Minister Theresa May’s constituency
The school, in Berkshire, has received devastating cuts in the last year – including losing out on a £70,000 grant – and is uncertain it will be able to operate after the next two years. Above, pupils at St Edmund Campion with supplies that are needed
Other items on St Edmund Campion’s Wish List include plasters, Pritt Sticks, colouring pencils, marker pens, Blu-tack, sticky tape, envelopes and lever arch files
Mrs May has represented the constituency of Maidenhead for 21 years. In March, she told the House of Commons that the Government was spending more on schools ‘than ever before’.
The school’s Amazon Wish List allows online shoppers using the retail giant to buy additional items when making purchases and send them to the school.
Among the 17 items on the list are toilet paper and a number of office and classroom supplies including pens, pencils, erasers and felt-tip pens.
One parent, Catherine del Campo, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school, says she is worried about what the future holds for the school.
She said: ‘I was shaken and nearly in tears. This is really desperate – the fact they are asking for office supplies and toilet paper.
‘As a parent, if the school is begging for toilet paper then it makes you wonder what’s next.’
Ms del Campo says the new National Funding Formula, which was designed to iron out discrepancies in the way funding was applied to schools, is seriously underfunded if schools are begging for essential items.
She said: ‘It doesn’t sit right with me that the Government can find £50million for grammar schools when others are begging for toilet paper.’
The £50million fund, announced in May, is for selective schools that can prove their commitment to admitting disadvantaged pupils.
Kate Foreman, business manager at St Edmund Campion, said this is the first year the school has received less funding from the Education Funding Agency than the previous year.
Mrs May has represented the constituency of Maidenhead for 21 years. In March, she told the House of Commons that the Government was spending more on schools ‘than ever before’
She added that a further £70,000 had been lost due to the Government’s decision to cut the Education Services Grant.
Academies and councils stopped receiving the grant last September.
Mrs Foreman said she is uncertain what the future holds for the school which has around 420 pupils aged four to 11.
She said: ‘We’re still committed to providing our children with an outstanding education but there’s only so much you can do. Financially we’re OK this year, and the next two years will probably be fine but any longer than that is harder to evaluate.
‘It’s certainly got more difficult over the last few years.’
The Government has defended the funding it provides for schools.
Detailing the new National Funding Formula in July last year, then Education Secretary Justine Greening said it will be a ‘fairer’ distribution and delivers ‘higher per pupil funding in respect of every school, and in every local area’.
But Angela Rayner, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, insists the Government has done nothing to reverse cuts.
Speaking earlier this year, she said: ‘£2.7billion has been cut from the budgets of England’s schools since 2015, and teacher recruitment targets have been missed for the fifth year in a row.
‘Until this Government gets the basics right, they will never be able to deliver the education that every child deserves.’
Other items on St Edmund Campion’s Wish List include plasters, Pritt Sticks, colouring pencils, marker pens, envelopes and lever arch files.