AN Ilminster head teacher has called for a “scandalous” funding structure for Somerset schools to be addressed.

Swanmead Community School’s head Mark Walker told The News it was not fair that pupils in Chard and Ilminster, as well as across the county, are subject to a “postcode lottery” when it comes to Government funding.

Currently, Somerset is one of the worst funded local authorities in the UK. For the year 2015/16 in the county, total dedicated schools grant funding stands at £5,250 per pupil as opposed to more than double that in the City of London, which receives £12,159.

The Swanmead head says he wants to let parents know about what he and fellow head teachers are up against and why they are fighting for fairer funding.

He said: “At the moment we are among the worst funded in the country. Consequently, secondary school students in Somerset are likely to suffer from larger class sizes, fewer support staff and inferior facilities compared with students in other authorities.

“My argument is that the quality of education should not be a function of postcode – I don’t think that’s right at all.

“I think perhaps that the powers that be see Somerset as rural, pretty, farming and a nice glass of cider in the sun, and make the assumption that people are not deprived.

“For us, the funding we get in April goes onto staffing as I have to make sure I have a certain amount of teachers and support staff to make sure the school functions.

“If our funding is less then there is the danger that class sizes will be bigger because I can only afford so many teachers, or the alternative is that if I want to keep our smaller class sizes other areas will miss out such as making sure disadvantaged pupils are catered for.

“I take the point that schools in London have deprivation and other issues but not more than 200% more – we have our own pockets of deprivation in Somerset.

“We do a wonderful job for our pupils, and the same goes for other local secondary schools and schools across the county, but we want to see fairer funding to even better serve our children so that they do not miss out.”

Somerset is a member of the F40 campaign group seeking fairer funding in education.

A spokesman for the group said: “F40 has always said that it wants to see a system which recognises the special needs of all local authorities whether they are in urban, rural or inner London locations.

Fundamentally we want a system which allows the lowest funded councils to catch up.”