A HEAD teachers' union has warned that Bradford schools face losing out on £38 million from their budgets due to what it described as a “funding crisis”.

The National Association of Head Teachers held a conference with school leaders in Bradford, Calderdale and the surrounding areas today during which it urged school leaders to do more to inform parents about their budget problems.

RELATED STORIES

Although the Government has insisted it is protecting school budgets, the NAHT says other pressures, including rising pension and National Insurance contributions, the soon-to-be introduced apprenticeship levy, and the reduction in Educational Services Grant, means schools will soon have to make major cuts.

Rob Kelsall, senior regional officer for the NAHT, said all these factors amounted to an eight per cent increase in running costs of a school.

He said the pressures were likely to be so bad by 2020 that schools could be faced with cutting entire subjects from their curriculum, or even switch to shorter school weeks.

The assembled heads were told these pressures would leave Bradford schools facing a real terms cut of £38 million by the end of this Parliament in 2020 amounting to a reduction of £489 per pupil.

Mr Kelsall added: “1,025 teachers would have to be lost to balance this budget.”

He said nationally schools faced a £3 billion budget shortfall by 2020.

“By the end of this Parliament, investment in the education system as a percentage of GDP will be down to levels not seen since the 1950s,” he said.

Heads were urged to encourage parents to write to their MPs to lobby for increased school funding.

Kevin Holland, head of Green Lane Primary School in Manningham, said: “Schools have been doing some planning to prepare for this. But a lot of schools have already cut most of the services that could be cut.

“Any next level of cuts will impact deeply on the children.

“Things have been improving in Bradford schools, and parents need the confidence that they will continue to improve. Any cuts will put us in an impossible position.”

However, the Department for Education has described talks of large cuts as "misleading."

A Spokesman said: "The union’s figures are fundamentally misleading. They ignore the fact that schools funding is driven by pupil numbers and as pupil numbers rise, the amount of money schools receive will also increase. School funding is at its highest level on record and will be over £40bn in 2016-17. But the system for distributing that funding across the country is unfair, opaque and outdated. We are going to end the historic post code lottery in school funding and create a system that funds schools fairly and according to the needs of their pupils. Under the proposed national schools funding formula, more than half of England’s schools will receive a cash boost.

“We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, which is why we will continue to provide support to help them use their funding in cost effective ways, including improving the way they buy goods and services, so‎ they get the best possible value.”