Budget cuts to force primary school to lose one class

In a letter sent to parents on March 24, Settle Primary's headteacher Richard Wright said: "As you will no doubt have heard, England's public services have witnessed a significant reduction in funds in recent years leading to major cutbacks in social care provision, health and other public services.

MORE TOP STORIES:

"Sadly, schools are also significantly affected and Settle C of E Primary is one of many schools in the local area having to consider real term reductions in provision due to a significant drop in budget and rising costs.

"From September 2017, we will be reducing our school by a class size and making further organisational changes. This is due to the current budget situation and the anticipated shortfalls we will be facing in the future.

"School reorganisation will primarily affect classes from Nursery to Year 3 and will lead in some cases to mixed age classes, which will be organised according to age initially but take into account individual circumstances such as special educational needs and maturity.

"School provision will otherwise be broadly unaffected and we will continue to offer similar related services as we do now. Care will also be taken to keep class sizes at a reasonable level."

With the reductions in the school budget and rising costs, he explained: "It is important that families know the cutbacks will, if unchecked, detrimentally affect your child and your community.

"Unless the government allocates more money, schools will lose £3 billion a year in real terms by 2020. For Settle C of E Primary School it means our budget will have seen a shortfall of -£52,039 by 2019."

He said rural schools were particularly feeling the pressure because they no longer had the same protections they used to have when it came to budget deficits.

He said: "For some schools in Craven, this has meant them facing closure this year or amalgamating with each other and sharing staff.

"During my time as headteacher of Settle Primary School, I have personally witnessed the closure of Langcliffe Primary School, Lower Bentham Primary, Richard Thornton Primary and the two Middle Schools at Ingleton and Settle. Currently there are proposals to closure at Horton-in-Ribblesdale Primary School and Rathmell Primary School.

"For schools like ours it means restructuring and in our case, sadly losing a class. Every rural school will be affected in some way and with the budget costs proposed under the New National Funding Formula there are more serious times ahead.

"It's not about money being available, but about money traditionally set aside for mainstream primary schools like Settle being redirected to support other government priorities (such £240 million for grammar schools and £400 million for universal academisation)

"It is important to raise local issues and to make the government aware of the situation - particularly in our area, as it presents a challenge to our rural community and way of life in Craven."