England's state schools suffering biggest fall in funding since 1980s, says IFS

Report shows schools in the most deprived areas worst affected by government's austerity policy

State schools in England have suffered their worst decline in funding since the 1980s, with secondary schools and those in the most deprived areas the worst affected by the era of austerity, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The decline that began after the Conservative-led coalition government took office in 2010 is so deep, the additional 7bn pledged by the current government will not be enough to reverse the cuts by 2023, leaving school spending 1% lower than in 2009-10, the IFS notes.

When I first started, I had to do a big restructuring, which led to about a dozen redundancies of support staff, and that was very difficult. I was a new headteacher, but we got through it.