SCHOOLS will be forced to make cuts as rising costs will likely outstrip school funding under government spending proposals, a think tank has warned.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’s annual report on education spending said the plan to increase teacher pay by 2.8 per cent for 2025/26 will leave “schools struggling to cover their costs without making savings.”

It estimated a 3.6 per cent rise in costs for state schools in England with a 2.8 per cent real-terms rise in state school funding per pupil for 2025/26 under the proposals.