THE Government has warned headteachers that if they reduced school hours to save money they would have to make the time back in the holidays.

The warning was made after headteachers said a funding crisis has become so severe that schools might have to consider closing to some pupils for half a day a week.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said that only an “unavoidable event” could justify a school failing to make its required 190 days per year.

West Sussex receives less funding per pupil than any other county in England, and the fourth-lowest of any local authority in England.

Peter Woodman, headteacher of Weald school in Billingshurst since 2008, told The Argus: “Over the last three to four years we’ve had the equivalent of a five per cent cut.

“Cutting school hours is at the bottom of the list of what we would try but it is a possibility.

“I was a teacher in Oxfordshire in the mid 1990s and we sent two classes home for one afternoon per week. "That might save us £150,000 per year.”

The per-pupil funding figure for West Sussex of £4,196 is nearly 15 per cent lower than the national average of £4,636 and £250 lower than in the east of the county.

That means a West Sussex school of 800 pupils receives £200,000 per year less than an equivalent school in East Sussex.

The new National Funding Formula, which campaigners believe will redress the historic underfunding in the authority, was due to be introduced from April but has now been delayed until 2018.

Yesterday the Department of Education told The Argus that the government was committed to allowing pupils to reach their full potential. A spokesman said: “That’s why we have protected the schools budget so that, as pupil numbers increase, so will the amount of money for our schools.”

He added: “If a school is prevented from meeting for one or more sessions because of an unavoidable event, it should find a practical way of holding extra sessions."

But he advised that cutting hours to save money would not be deemed an unavoidable event.

He added: "If it cannot find a practical way of doing this then it is not required to make up the lost sessions. ”

But a letter sent from West Sussex headteachers last week warned that finances are so bad that schools are considering increasing class sizes, reducing basic services like cleaning, and even “modifying school opening hours”.

The letter called for £20m to be pledged for West Sussex for the coming financial year as a stop-gap until the new National funding Formula is introduced. An online petition and Facegroup group are also championing the “WorthLess” campaign asking why the funding differential is so great.

Darren Carpenter, business manager at St Andrews High School in Worthing, told The Argus: “All our costs are going up and our funding has remained static for several years.”

“We have teachers and support staff going through a pay increase and there’s increases to national insurance and pensions. All in all it adds up to about a £75,000 increase.”

“In the last 18 months we’ve had to have two staff restructures. We’ve lost 12 staff out of a team of 130.”

He accused the government of a lack of joined-up thinking, forcing schools to absorb rising costs while keep funds frozen in cash terms.

Last month West Sussex County Council leader Louise Goldsmith wrote to the Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening to ask for additional funds, warning: “Our schools cannot absorb more pressure on their budgets, which are already underfunded, through further efficiency measures – they have already squeezed their budgets to the limit”

HEADS LEFT WITH FEW OPTIONS IF FUNDS CUT

IF YOU’RE carrying a few pounds you can lose a few, but when you’re eight stone you can’t lose half a stone. That’s where we are now, we’re losing flesh and bone. It’s the end of the line.”

This is how Peter Woodman, a teacher for 32 years and a head for 12, describes the funding crisis in West Sussex.

In his school, Weald School in Billingshurst, teachers for the institution’s 1,650 pupils are already scheduled for 53 periods out of 60 per fortnight.

Allowing for the ten per cent mandated by law for planning, preparation and assessment that leaves just one spare period to provide cover in case of staff absence. To increase rota demands would risk having to pay for expensive supply teachers.

Year Seven classrooms are already bursting with 31 or 32 pupils, and if GCSE courses have to go the same way, it will impact students’ options. Mr Woodman explained: “If I have to have 30 pupils in a history class, some students who didn’t want to do history will have to do it because I’ve got to put a full history class on. So it reduces pupil choice.”

He warned that sending pupils home for one afternoon per week – as he experienced in Oxfordshire 20 years ago – is not beyond the realms of possibility.

This year Weald School will finish the year £140,000 in deficit, which they will make up out of the school’s dwindling savings. Other schools have had to do the same.

The new National Funding Formula was due to come in from this April, so West Sussex schools confident of an increase, once a new model is adopted, have tried to delay the hardest of choices over the last couple of years by eating into savings.

But with that new formula now put off until 2018 at the earliest, teachers are warning that lesson time, pupil choice or even school cleanliness may now have to suffer to balance the books.

A letter sent from every primary, secondary and special school in West Sussex last week said: “Our finances are so bad that we are all having to consider the following types of action: modifying school opening hours; increasing teacher to pupil ratios again; reducing basic services such as cleaning and site and premises work; stopping any investment in books and IT equipment; designing curriculum offers that fulfil only basic requirements; not replacing staff who leave.”

West Sussex is the fourth-poor- est funded local authority in the country, receiving 15 per cent less per pupil than the national average. Although no-one argues a relatively affluent area requires as much investment per pupil as the most deprived London boroughs, it seems inexplicable schools should receive £250 less per head than the east of the county. The money to run the county’s schools comes direct from Government through the devolved formula grant – it is not funded by council tax and there is no mechanism for a local “top-up”.

For the last several years that fund has been frozen in cash terms, meaning it has not been cut, but neither has it increased in line with inflation. However, schools are subject to the same economic legislation as other public and private sector employers, so their costs have been going up. Increases in the minimum wage affect ancillary staff costs, and teachers had a one per cent pay rise last month. Moreover government rules on increased employer contributions to their staff’s National Insurance and pension pot all come out of that frozen budget, equating to a cut in real terms.

And next September, the local education support grant, worth £5.3 million in West Sussex, is due to be scrapped. It pays for wider education services including inspections, advisors, and special educational needs support.

“That’s why we’re panicking,” said Peter Woodman, “the need will still remain so the county council will have to get the funds from schools.”

He and others are pleading for £20 million in transitional funding for West Sussex schools, to tide them over until the formula is adopted. Jeremy Quin, MP for Horsham, is among the regional MPs to have lobbied the Secretary of State on their behalf. He has described the existing funding arrangement as based on “archaic political considerations”.

A petition online has reached 6,900 signatures and a group called WorthLess West Sussex Schools Campaign for Fairer Funding has close to 20,000 “likes” on Facebook.

After the hardline response from the Department for Education received by The Argus yesterday campaigners are hoping they get results before the Government and the county’s schools find themselves in a bitter dispute, with pupils caught in the crossfire.