A HEADTEACHER says the future is going to be tough after his school’s energy bills skyrocketed by £44,000.

Richard Potter revealed Home Farm Primary School, Colchester, has seen bills soar by 300 per cent after energy costs rose from 2p per kilowatt hour to 9p.

The headteacher of the Lexden school explained this means he is now facing yearly outgoings of £60,000… previously this year costs were forecasted to be £16,000.

But despite this, Mr Potter argues he is one of the “luckier” ones after overseeing 200 solar panels being built at the site since his arrival in 2012.

He stated another Colchester headteacher told him they are looking at bills rising to just shy of £100,000, but admitted things are getting hard at Home Farm.

“Colleagues have reported early signs of families under pressure: children arriving to school hungry, late payments for dinner money and requests for second hand uniform,” said Mr Potter.

“We have to supply school meals but food ingredients are increasing in price by up to 20 per cent.

“The Department for Education has released a grant which will provide us with roughly £37,000, but it very much does not cover even a fraction of the rises we are seeing.”

He continued: “This isn’t us looking for sympathy and cries of ‘poor schools’, we are here for our community and the cost of living pressures on families are being supported by us every day.

“We are still going to run school trips, we are still feeding our hungry pupils and we are writing off debt for late school dinners. We want to support our community but we are not getting any more support.”

Mr Potter added he believes headteachers across Colchester are now going to have to collaborate together to help swallow difficulties to come.

“The future brings unknown challenges but ones we are ready to tackle,” he stated.

“As the cost of living hits, families are going to have to choose what’s best for them and schools will have those pressures. It is going to be a hard way forward.”