Sharon has again pledged to fight the Tory cuts to school budgets in the new Parliament, following analysis of the Tories’ manifesto plans for schools.

Analysis by the IFS shows that schools in Washington and Sunderland West face significant cuts over the next five years if the Tories go ahead with the implementation of their manifesto commitments on school funding.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) have used these figures to calculate that pupils in Washington and Sunderland West will on average have their funding cut by -£409 or by –9%, which equates to -£150,873 cut on average for each school in Washington and Sunderland West.

In reaction to this, the School Cuts campaign website has created a new petition to put pressure on the new Tory Government to rethink their approach to education. The petition can be found here: https://schoolcuts.nationbuilder.com/post_ge_petition

Before the 2017 General Election, Sharon secured a debate in Parliament on school cuts in the North East. Yet, the concerns from parents and teachers raised by MPs during the debate were ignored by the Minister who responded to the debate. 

Sharon also campaigned on the issue of school cuts during the General Election and visited many school gates where parents highlighted their concerns with the future of their children’s schools, and committed to take these concerns with her back to Parliament.

Following the General Election, and the analysis of IFS figures, Sharon has pledged to fight against these cuts in Parliament, and said:

“The education of our children and young people has always been an important issue which I have dedicated much of my time as a Member of Parliament doing, and now that I have been re-elected, I will continue doing so to ensure the next generation has better opportunities than the last.

“Sadly, we are not seeing this promise and instead find a complete mismanagement engulfing our education system under the Tories, ranging from a failure to address the real-term cuts to school budgets, the increasing class sizes, subjects being dropped from the school curriculum and a serious recruitment and retention crisis within the teaching profession.

“Instead of further heads-in-the-sand complacency from the Tories, we need action that does not damage the future prospects of children in our country, including here in Washington and Sunderland West. I hope as many of my constituents will join me in fighting these cuts and sign this petition: https://schoolcuts.nationbuilder.com/post_ge_petition”