Some heads have resorted to writing begging letters to parents asking for contributions of £20 a month or more
Heads are left with no choice but to go begging to parents for cash to educate their children.
A survey found one in six state schools has sent letters to families asking for contributions of £20 a month or more for around 1.4 million kids.
One, St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School in Barnet, North London, suggested donations of £250 from each household to cover £100,000 slashed from its budget by Theresa May.
Head Julian Ward said: “It’s embarrassing to have to ask parents for money.”
Another, Horsell Village School in Woking, Surrey, needs to plug a £65,000 black hole and pleaded with parents to send £20 a month by standing order.
And teaching unions warn things will get worse as the Tories will demand £3billion further cuts in two years.
“When the Government’s real-term cuts take effect schools will simply be running on empty. Parents cannot sit back and watch their children’s education harmed by this bargain basement approach to schooling.
“The Government must listen to parents, MPs, heads, unions and school governors who have been lobbying to say that enough is enough.”
Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted added: “Schools are already struggling to make ends meet and children are already losing out.
“But underfunding means this will get much worse, since in two years’ time schools will have to make savings of more than £3billion a year.
“Unless the Government finds more money fast, today’s children will have severely limited choices at school and those from poorer families will be even further disadvantaged because their parents may struggle to contibute.”
And it found cuts are affecting the quality of education in England’s 21,500 schools, with 3,570 of them pleading for cash from parents. Several begging letters have been seen by the Mirror.
More than half of the teachers polled said their school now charges parents to go to concerts and sports events.
Four in 10 said their school had cut spending on special educational needs, such as extra support for deaf children.
Two weeks ago the Government’s spending watchdog, the Commons Public Accounts Committee, attacked plans to make savings of £3billion by 2020 from education – insisting the Department for Education “does not seem to understand the pressures that schools are already under”.
And the Education Policy Institute think tank warned every secondary school faces losing six teachers, while primary could axe two as the cuts bite.
The Department for Education insisted it has “protected the core schools budget in real terms”.
It said: “We recognise schools face cost pressures, which is why we provide help for them to use funding in cost effective ways and make efficiencies.”
Documentary academy 'will lose 20 staff'
Head Vic Goddard, 48, said a budget crisis has serious consequences for Passmores Academy in Harlow.
He blasted plans to allocate £320million in the Budget for new free schools — a number of which could be grammars.
He said: “This decision is ideologically driven. All we ask is that we can afford to educate the children we already have in our schools, not worrying about the ones we haven’t got yet.”
Passmores has 1,150 pupils and 80 teachers, with Ofsted in 2013 rating it as “good”.
The budget would drop by £764,580 under government plans — equivalent to losing 20 teachers. Mr Goddard said: “Pupils will be less safe and worse educated. We need to do something about this.”
Mirror
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