Barn Croft School Christmas No. 1

Aim: Had enough of seeing our children's education budgets being cut to ribbons? Let's turn our rage into action -

Had enough of sitting in silence as our children's education budgets are cut to ribbons? Let's make our voices heard, make some noise and turn our local school into a renewable Power Station - building resilience from government cuts and showing that education is a human right.

Next year the state schools in our borough are set to lose a staggering £8.7 Million in government funding. 

This affects the small one form entry school of Barn Croft Primary disproportionately. The Stop School Cuts campaign has been fighting these cuts since 2016. There have been recent wins, with the latest autumn statement pledging more money to schools, but costs and deficits are rising…

Check The School Cuts Website

For schools like Barn Croft Primary these budget cuts often mean losing out on the learning often deemed less important than Maths and English but essential for a generation where the nurturing of imagination and creative problem solving is critical as we face global challenges.  

Barn Croft Primary school supports its community as they feel the impacts of the cost of living crisis in so many ways  - providing food in half terms, assisting with gas and electricity bills, running food growing and cooking initiatives and providing uniform and being a warm space. And it does this whilst facing cuts to education budgets that bring the threat of redundancies - reducing the school’s capacity to be able to provide this vital support.

So - we decided to stand together and launch a bid to use music as a way of raising the profile of the school. We have involved the whole school in producing a track that we hoped would get Barn Croft Primary School to number 1 in the charts for Christmas - we peaked at around no. 21 in the iTunes Christmas charts– but more importantly, we have been hugely successful at creating national awareness about education cuts and vital funds to ensure the school’s resilience - getting our story onto BBC London, ITV and Channel 4 news slots as well as Al Jazeera, the Big Issue and all sorts of other media appearances. We have used these spaces to ask big and important questions: 

• What sort of policies cut the basic education of our children? 
• What sort of damage will that do to the next generation having to pick up and start to mend this broken economic and social fabric? 

Our song is all about voice – ‘the chance to turn the pages over, believing we can make it better.’ We can make it better together and extraordinary times demand extraordinary actions – so why not try for a chart topper whilst making some noise! 

Why are we Crowdfunding?

We are aiming for £50,000. The money raised will mean that Barn Croft Primary School will be able to majority own the solar panels that will be installed on the rooftop early 2023.

In this way, rather than a one-off cash injection, this secures future energy security, making the school a little power station with the ability to budget for regularly reduced outgoings on heat and light whilst also having the solar panels as a tool for learning about climate and energy.

Support the crowdfunder by making a pledge today, and share this Crowdfunder page with your friends, family and other networks. You can also download the track here: https://barncroftprimaryschool.hearnow.com/ or on Amazon via: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BQ8J8LVR