Chesterfield headteacher to do Great North Run to plug £19,000 funding shortfall

A '˜deprived' Chesterfield school which is facing huge funding cuts has resorted to charity to pay the bills.

The situation has got so bad that the headteacher of Spire Juniors’ is to run the Great North Run to cover a £19,000 budget shortfall.

Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins asked Prime Minister Theresa May about the school’s plight at Westminster today.

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He said: “The headteacher, Dave Shaw, was running the Great North Run for a cancer charity.

“However, her new funding formula means the school faces the biggest cuts in all of Derbyshire.

“Running for cash is now the only alternative to sacking staff.

“Will she go to the finish line and tell Dave Shaw how this is a fairer funding formula?”

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Mr Perkins added that the school is the third most deprived in Derbyshire, with 70 per cent of its pupils receiving free school meals.

In response, Theresa May told a packed session of Prime Minister’s Questions she too wanted to see changes.

She said: “The Government has brought forward a consultation on a fairer funding formula for schools.

“We will look at the results of that consultation and will bring forward our firm proposals in due course.”

She added that, in Derbyshire, 17,000 more children were being educated in good or outstanding schools than in 2010.

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