PARENTS have been asked to make a contribution towards their children’s schoolbooks after Hanley Castle High School’s headteacher announced her budget had been cut.
In a letter to parents Lindsey Cooke said the Church End school, which was rated ‘good’ in its latest Ofsted inspection last month, had reluctantly made the decision to ask for a voluntary £40-a-year from them to cover the cost of textbooks every September.
She also revealed sixth form students will be asked to purchase all essentials required for their courses.
With income falling by £90,000 a year since 2013/14, Ms Cooke added the school would have to cut staff if they did not ask for voluntary contributions.
Slashing staff numbers would result in increased class sizes as well as a reduction in the amount of courses on offer for students, particularly at GCSE and A Level.
“Many schools have already asked parents for help with buying texts, textbooks and other resources for their children and now, very reluctantly, we are going to have to do the same thing,” said Ms Cooke.
“We are acutely aware that these are tough times for parents as well as schools, and help will be provided for those students qualifying for the pupil premium or for student bursaries in our sixth form.
“Individual payment plans to spread the cost will also be considered.
“You can imagine how disappointing it is for me to have to ask parents for this help, but the request is made with the sole purpose of preserving the wide range of subjects we offer to our students, as well as maintaining our relatively small class sizes.”
After hearing the news, Samantha Charles, chair of the West Worcestershire Constituency Labour Party, was left appalled that the school had been forced into this position.
She also called on Malvern’s Conservative MP Harriett Baldwin to stand up for public services and the hard-working public sector workers in the constituency.
“We pay tax for public services, not to give £1.5billion to the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) for ten seats to keep the Tories in Government.”
In response, Mrs Baldwin said that after seeing the letter from Ms Cooke, she agreed that despite a record national schools budget the national funding formula for Worcestershire was not fair.
The MP also said she has ‘championed’ for fairer funding for county schools and will continue to press for some positive news from the Department of Education to share with headteachers, staff and parents while a new funding formula is under consultation.
She added: “Having spoken to Ms Cooke regularly on this matter, I know that a record number of pupils attend this excellent school and enjoy using the new science classrooms and the new sixth form centre which have recently been built.
“It is clearly not right that sixth form students should have to pay for textbooks.
“I plan to pass this latest news on to the relevant Minister to support our case for an announcement on the new fairer funding formula as soon as possible.”
