The St Matthew’s “Funding Shortfall” campaign was created by a group of parents in March 2019 in response to a £60,000 reduction in the school’s funding for the 2019-20 financial year. Alongside campaigning for the cuts to be reversed, many parents, carers and families wanted to donate to help St Matthew’s ‘fill the shortfall’ and minimise the impact of the cuts on the teaching and support it provides. Our goal was to fill the £60,000 shortfall.
We met our original £60,000 in December 2020. Since then parents have continued to donate to support the school.
The first £60,000 was used to fill the shortfall from budget cuts the school faced in 2019-20. Following this, a number of specific capital projects that will have a lasting impact but were difficult to fund from the school’s main budget were funded, as listed on the front page and in the News section.
A further block of donations (approximately £47,000) which had been transferred to the school was, out of necessity, used by the school to continue essential service provision in 2022. Mr Davies hopes that once the school budget returns to healthier levels, some of this tranche can be “returned” to use on enhancement projects.
In 2023, the school was plunged into further budgetary crisis, mainly due to rising staff costs (without corresponding government funding), energy prices. Mr Davies asked the PTA to use raised funds to cover a series of budget items that he considered essential to maintain, but were at risk of being cut due to a budget deficit, known as the “deficit projects”.