Hammond: Mr Hammond and Rhetoric

hammond: We've been sneered at, one said, according to The Guardian. Another said Headteachers feel indignant about Mr Hammond's little extras' rhetoric, but most of all we are shocked that the reasonable requests of parents and the profession as a whole have been ignored. Far from building bridges, the chancellor risked making the situation worse by describing the one-off payment to schools in one interview as a nice gesture which would help headteachers afford a whiteboard, a couple of computers, whatever it is they want to buy . At a time when teachers and support staff are being made redundant, and pastoral and special educational needs services are being cut back after years of real-terms funding reductions, school leaders found Hammond's choice of words galling and insulting. At one point, in an interview with Susanna Reid on ITV's Good Morning Britain, the chancellor clearly having some problems hearing the question appeared to reject her suggestion that some schools were so hard up that they were considering shorter weeks and could not afford essentials. We put 1.3bn of additional money into schools funding last year to protect per-pupil spending in our schools. Frankly, I reject that, he said twice, then added Schools spending will be dealt with in the spending review. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.