School forced to reduce teachers and subject options

Chas Drew is the head at Commonweal School which has written to parents about cutting subjects

Class sizes are set to increase and the range of subjects offered to pupils will be reduced due to a lack of funds, a head teacher has said.

Chas Drew, head at Commonweal School, Swindon, also confirmed that the number of support staff for children with special educational needs will be reduced and help for low-income families for uniform is being cut.

He added: "I'm not saying these things publicly because I'm trying to cause an argument, I just need to be honest with our community and I think our political leaders need to be honest with the country."

The government said it has invested a further £3.2bn in schools and it will support leaders to use funding efficiently.

The school will also have to make classes in core subjects bigger

The secondary school, which has 1,400 students, will stop teaching health and social care and sociology. Pupils half way through their GCSEs will be able to continue with the subjects.

Mr Drew continued: "In core subjects, we having to make groups bigger, have more children in each class. That's because we're having to reduce our number of teachers from 94 down to 90.

"That doesn't sound like a huge change but when you've got no slack left in the system, that has a really significant impact."

The letter said the school also plans to reduce numbers of support staff, cut the amount of alternative provision for special educational needs children and slash help for those on low income for trips and uniform.

He said it is a national problem with costs rising more than income ever year. He called for a "grown-up conversation" between schools and government.

Neil Mercer is a maths teacher at the school, but also a parent there - he called the news a "shock" and is "very concerned".

"She's in year 9, going into year 10, this will have an impact on her GCSEs. It's also about the extra-curricular activities and the wider things the school is able to do or less able to do because of financial constraints," he said.

The school has been scrapping "nice-to-have" subjects already

The Department for Education said the government "inherited a challenging fiscal context".

A spokesperson said: "We recognise the pressures schools are facing, but despite the challenging economic context, we are putting a further £3.2bn into schools' budgets.

"We trust schools, who know their pupils best, to make decisions about how best to invest their funding to support every child to achieve and thrive and to get the best value for money from overall resources."

It added that the department will support leaders to use funding efficiently with initiatives to help reduce costs.