Hard-up school sent pupils home
Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under attack after a school announced it was sending more than 700 pupils home because it could not afford temporary staff.
Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said Edenham High School, in Croydon, south London, where 720 pupils were sent home this afternoon, was just one of the many victims of the Government's "botched" funding system.
The school's headteacher, Jonathan Parker, said he cannot afford to pay supply teachers and he has had to send the pupils home for half a day because of a £220,000 budget shortfall.
Mr Parker said parents had given the school their support at a meeting last week. He said: "They are appalled but incredibly supportive. They recognise that it is not the school's fault and they are horrified by what is happening. I am horrified. This is my eighth year as headteacher here and I can see everything that I have tried to achieve disappearing rapidly...It is not just my school. There are other schools in difficult circumstances."
Speaking at Commons Question Time, Mr Duncan Smith said schools up and down the country faced laying off teachers. He called on Mr Blair to apologise to parents.
"At Edenham High School in Croydon pupils are being sent home early and teachers face the sack," he said.
"Who do you think the parents should blame - the Labour Education Secretary or Labour-controlled Croydon Council?
"It is not only happening in Croydon. Up and down the country, schools have run out of money and teachers face the sack.
"It is now clear that the Education Secretary has utterly botched the new funding system. Will you take this opportunity to get to the despatch box and apologise to all the parents, teachers and governors?"
Mr Blair said he accepted there were some problems but added that Croydon had received an increase in its schools budget of more than twice the inflation rate.
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