Commenting on a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which says that cuts to education spending in England over the past decade are “effectively without precedent in post-war history”, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“This report paints a bleak picture of the government’s priorities when it comes to investing in education or supporting our most vulnerable children.

“Over the last few years, we have seen a new funding formula that directs money away from the most disadvantaged, a pupil premium policy change that has led to the some of the poorest families not receiving funding they should have been entitled to, and a failure to deliver on long overdue SEND reforms.

“The best the government could offer at the last spending review was to restore per pupil spending back to 2010 levels. Not much to boast about, as it represents a failure to invest in children’s futures for over a decade.

“Despite all their rhetoric about ‘levelling up’, the government still fails to fully recognise that education is an investment in not only our children’s life chances, but in the nation’s future.”