A BRACKNELL school is at “breaking point” after having to ask parents to give weekly donations due to huge funding concerns.

In a newsletter sent to parents of children attending Edgbarrow School in Crowthorne, senior representatives from the academy asked parents for weekly donations of £1.15 - or an annual fee of £60 - in order to keep teachers in jobs.

The newsletter, sent out in late June, read: “We are acutely aware that having to ask for financial support is not in the spirit of a state funded education system, we are embarrassed to do so but we are your school and all our efforts are aimed at providing the best possible education for our students.”

Edgbarrow School, which claims it receives £854 less per pupil than the national average, has outlined proposals to cut a senior management member and two teaching staff, with their positions set to be filled by existing teachers who will be forced to teach their “second” subject.

Other proposed changes include scrapping technology lessons for Year 7 children and limiting German lessons, as well as fewer provisions for special educational needs children and fewer subsidies for school trips.

The newsletter continued: “The impact on students is disappointingly obvious; bigger classes and a narrower curriculum.

“As the school is able to provide less, more costs are passed to the parents.

“We need your support.”

Nikola Mansfield, the school librarian and a parent of a child attending the school, told the News: “I was really pleased that the letter sent out by the school finally showed the true extent of the cuts.

“The last few years have been tough on the school and they’ve cut everything they possibly can but they’ve always put a brave face on it so the public haven’t seen how bad it’s been getting.

“Our library budget alone has been cut from £10,000 a year when I first started 3 1/2 years ago to just under £3,000 this year and likely to be less this coming year.

“Our schools need proper funding from central government. They keep saying there is more money going in but with more students each year and the funding freeze we’ve seen over the last few years, already leaving the school at breaking point, means it is not enough.

“As much as donations are helpful in the moment we need a more sustained solution which can only be more funding from central government.”

Ms Mansfield also added that parents have been “very generous” over the last few years but another parent said “I would donate but struggle to pay my bills every month as it is.”

Edgbarrow School is an academy run by the Corvus Learning Trust, meaning it does not receive its funding from Bracknell Forest Council, but directly from the Department for Education.

The school held a meeting on Tuesday, July 10, to discuss the proposed changes.