Coby joins fight for school funding with snooker marathon

The nine year-old took on a ten-hour snooker marathon to raise £813 for the Chesterfield school, which is facing huge funding cuts.

Coby’s epic undertaking follows comes as it emerged that headteacher Dave Shaw 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.

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?”

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