Heads rebel over school cuts

At least 30 schools in Northumberland could close

Council bosses have warned almost 100 headteachers they are breaking the law by refusing to sack staff.

Northumberland County Council says the headteachers are "acting illegally" by opting to overspend rather than make teachers redundant.

More than 30 schools in the county already face closure because of a massive surplus in pupil places.

The county council says it has to rid itself of more than 7,000 surplus school places within four years

But after a meeting of the county's headteachers they have decided to take no notice of tight budgets - and overspend in order to secure teachers' jobs.

The headteachers met to compare budgets and after what was described as a "difficult and long" meeting many decided to bust their budgets.

A spokesman for Northumberland County Council said the headteachers were acting illegally.

But David Thompson, headteacher of Haydon Bridge High School, said: "At our meeting there was a great deal of anger at the financial situation many schools in Northumberland are facing.

We were promised in the 1990s that the budgetary difficulties were over, but this is not the case

David Thompson, headteacher

"We are talking about very professional headteachers and they have not this decision lightly.

"The county council is trying to inject extra funding and central government are robbing Peter to pay Paul in the short term."

In the 1990s some Northumberland schools submitted so-called deficit budgets, after education bosses embarked on a round of proposed school closures.

Mr Thompson added: "The priority within our schools is the wellbeing and education of our young people.

"We will have to sort out the budget deficits at some time in the future.

"We were promised in the 1990s that the budgetary difficulties were over, but this is not the case and we are in an even worse state now than we were then."

The council says it has already pledged to use £1.5m in reserve funds to stave off about 20 teacher job losses.