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Bentfield County Primary School: ‘Challenging’ budget leads Stansted head teacher to roll up his sleeves and get decorating during Easter holidays with help of volunteers




The head teacher of Stansted’s Bentfield County Primary, who rolled up his sleeves to decorate his own school over the Easter holidays, says the financial pressures they are facing makes it “enormously challenging” to afford even the basics.

David Rogers, who has been at the helm since 2013, said he was juggling staff pay increases funded through school budgets with rising energy costs and all the while prioritising the children’s needs, ensuring they are taught within a stimulating environment and with access to all the resources they need.

With this in mind, he dedicated part of his holiday to painting the Key 2 Stage corridor with help from his 12-year-old son, Ben, and two friends, Amy and Kevin Needham, whose employers provided them with designated ‘volunteer days’ to carry out work within their community.

Mr Rogers said they spent £150 on paint and equipment to brighten up the corridor with plans to return at May half term and during the summer holidays to decorate the classrooms.

“Unfortunately, school budgets are no longer meeting the needs of schools. With the increase in energy costs and the prices of goods and services, as well as unfunded rises in staff pay, we are finding it enormously challenging to afford even the basics,” said Mr Rogers.

“This includes maintenance work such as painting, so it is extremely heart-warming when staff and friends give up their own time to help, as we would have no other way of getting it completed. We have had staff in over the holidays replenishing outside spaces, and it was very kind of Amy and Kevin’s companies to release them for the day for some much needed additional help.”

He added: “It shouldn’t have to be this way, but unfortunately it is and it’s really hard work at the moment trying to keep things afloat.”

He said it was vital they made the curriculum as “enthralling as possible” through school trips and visitors coming in plus all the resources they would like to have in place such as interactive technology and practical resources. “That’s where it’s really difficult, plus the general upkeep of the school.”

Bentfield Primary, in Rainsford Road, is currently rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted and has an excellent reputation for teaching children with special needs. It currently has 192 pupils, plus another 30 in its nursery, and 70 staff on its books – 58 of whom are learning support assistance for special needs children, a significant proportion of whom have severe learning difficulties.

“We are a very staff intensive school because we have a significant number of children with special needs and therefore, because we have that high level of staff, we have increasing staff costs which affects us enormously.

“I champion the pay rises, but unfortunately we have to find it through our school budget, but we never stop putting our pupils first, that will always be at the forefront of our minds. We want a stimulating environment here and painting the walls give us the opportunity to put up more dislays to help stimulate their learning.

“I have earmarked some of the summer holidays to do more paiting and would like to involve the community and our parent body as I think there will be people out there more than willing to come and support us. We have a really supportive school community and I’m sure people will chip in!

Mr Rogers added: “It is enormously challenging, but it’s what we believe in and we really proud of our ethos here at the school.”



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