WYRE Forest Labour have backed head teachers from the area who are planning on marching on Downing Street to demand fairer funding for schools.

High schools in Wyre Forest are joining the ‘Worth Less?’ movement and will make the trip to London alongside counterparts from across Worcestershire to highlight the issue.

Local Labour members said Government underfunding and a drive to encourage schools to become academies were to blame for the situation and urged head teachers to talk to them.

Wyre Forest Labour’s Stephen Brown met the national party’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner to discuss ending academisation last year.

He said: “I think most people would expect a head teacher’s job is to manage the education of children in their care, rather than being forced to join a campaign to get the Government to fund them properly so they can do the job they’re actually employed to do.

“This is a measure of the crisis that the Tory Government has inflicted upon our schools, and I can’t blame the head teachers at all for basically saying they’ve had enough.”

Wyre Forest’s Conservative MP Mark Garnier said he was sympathetic to the head teachers’ point of view and added that he believed the Government may have gone too far with austerity with regards to public spending.

He added funding for schools was going up above inflation under the current Government and also said they need to look at their own budgets and how they spend the money received.

But Mr Brown said: “I’ve been warning for over two years that our local schools are in crisis. Indeed, before last year’s General Election, I pointed out that Wyre Forest Schools are some £2million short of the money they need.

“Wyre Forest Tory MP, Mark Garnier, took no notice then other than offer some glib comments about fairer funding, so why should he care now? Nothing’s changed.

“He has remarked on this issue that people “have had enough of austerity” but he’s done nothing to avert this problem, voted for every single cut his Government has implemented, and still continues to do so. All of this was done whilst promising schools that Academisation was the answer.

“Now, we’re in a position where our schools are having to beg parents for money to buy anything from books to toilet rolls, or ask parents to write to their MP to get fair funding. That can’t be right on any level.”