Hackney’s City Academy to slash lesson times due to funding cuts

Schools out: campaigners staged rallies in Hackney’s parks last month. Photograph: Carlota Calderon

One of the borough’s top schools is “reluctantly” shaving five minutes off every lesson due to government budget cuts, its headteacher has revealed.

The unusual move, designed to help with staff costs, means the school day at Homerton’s City Academy will be half an hour shorter – starting 20 minutes later at 8.45am and ending 10 minutes earlier at 3.30pm.

In a letter to parents, principal Mark Malcolm explained: “In the light of recent cash freezes and ongoing financial pressures, the governing body has reluctantly decided that the best way to maintain our high standards and the quality of education for students, while making the necessary economies in the coming year, is to cut the length of each lesson by five minutes, to 55 minutes for a single period.”

Figures from campaign group Fair Funding for All Schools (FFfAS), which has been calling for a halt to education cuts, suggest City Academy will lose £844,595 from its budget by 2022 under the current government.

This amounts to £951 per pupil, and is the equivalent of 19 teachers’ salaries.

The Department for Education (DfE) has proposed a change to the national funding formula, which it says currently favours London schools, from 2018.

The formula is used to work out how money from the dedicated schools grant is divvied up among local authorities, and those in the capital are set to lose out.

Commenting on City Academy’s announcement, Hackney Central councillor and parent Sophie Conway said: “This is my daughter’s school and this is the reality of this government’s ‘fairer’ funding formula.”

The school, which opened in 2009, is rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted, with 89 per cent of pupils achieving five or more grades between A* and C in their GCSEs last year.

Malcolm confirmed the school will remain open from 7.30am until 6.30pm despite the shortened lessons, adding: “We will continue to deliver outstanding teaching and learning, to ensure students make the exceptional progress that The Academy prides itself on.”

A spokesperson for City of London Corporation, one of the school’s sponsors, said it is committed to ensuring City Academy continues to provide a “first class education” for pupils, adding: “The core hours being taught at the academy remain in excess of the average school week and they are supplemented by a wide range of extra-curricular activities.

“We are working closely with the school and co-sponsors, KPMG, to ensure it continues with the highest standard of teaching with a rich and varied curriculum.”