Schools across the Herald’s patch will see their budgets cut by a combined total of more than £1.2million by 2019, according to an online tool.
The School Cuts website, developed by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, says Devon will lose out on £35million a year in real terms by 2020 under current policies – aimed at making funding fair across England – if the Government does not allocate more money.
It says funding per pupil is not being increased in line with inflation so will be an average of £401 less, with a loss of 943 teachers – but the Department for Education has described the figures as ‘fundamentally misleading’.
The campaigners are petitioning Chancellor Philip Hammond to commit the £3billion needed to implement a national funding formula that increases funding in comparatively poorly funded areas of England without cutting funding per pupil for other schools.
The website says The King’s School will be worst hit in the Herald’s patch, losing £538,716 by 2019.
Sidmouth College will lose £295,967 over the same period and £171,319 will be cut from Sidmouth Primary School’s budget.
According to the website, Newton Poppleford Primary School will lose £59,723 by 2019. Urging parents to write to their MP in a recent newsletter, headteacher Stuart Vaughan said: “We will work hard to ensure that cuts have the least impact on teaching possible.
“However, rising costs and a frozen budget mean that tough decisions will have to be taken.
“Please be assured that we will, as always, take the utmost care with budgets, to ensure all the money we have is spent effectively on your children.
“We are also letting the local authority and government know just how serious the funding crisis has become.”
A Department for Education spokeswoman said the figures were ‘fundamentally misleading’ as they ignored the fact that the funding schools receive was driven by pupil numbers.
She added: “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 But the system for distributing that funding across the country is unfair, opaque and outdated.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 postcode 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.”
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