COLCHESTER’S Liberal Democrats group has started a petition to fight Government cuts to school funding.

Schools across the UK are facing cash cuts under the new National Funding Formula, that is set to be rolled out by the Government in April next year.

The issue was discussed at a Lib Dem meeting on Monday evening and members decided to act.

Councillor Phil Coleman (Lib Dem, Mile End) has worked as a PE teacher at the Colne Community School in Brightlingsea for the past 25 years.

He said: “For several years now I have seen budgets being cut in this and other schools.

“The government has said that it is a real one percent rise, but the running costs of schools have been going up by as much as 10 percent a year.

“I have seen support staff, groundsmen and assistant staff cut in recent years.

“In isolation if it were one school I would say we need to look at it but when head teachers in separate counties are saying it then it is a big problem.

“I am pretty certain that a lot of parents do not realise the situation is this bad.

“The petition is about raising awareness that the government needs to act.”

Earlier this month headteachers from every school in Essex wrote a letter warning of budgets at "breaking point".

Councillor Lyn Barton (Lib Dem, Shrub End) was a teacher at Philip Morant School and College for 15 years and also worked at St Marys School before she retired.

She said: “For years we tried to improve classroom conditions and at the moment there is real problems with recruiting teachers and we cannot retain them once we have them because of the work load.

“There is an education budget but the government is choosing to spend that on the grammar schools.

“All my life I have fought for smaller classes so that children have the best opportunity to learn as possible.

“It is heart-breaking for me to see no investment being made in the schools that we have already got.”

Sign the petition at http://bit.ly/2njvrJL.