STAFF at a Weymouth senior school are facing potential job cuts amid moves to save money ahead of the new school year, starting September 2019.

It is understood Budmouth College at Chickerell, which is due to be taken over by Aspirations Academies Trust on September 1, plans to make an overall saving in staff costs of between £600,000 and £700,000.

Parents demonstrated their opposition to the college's takeover by Aspirations

as they protested outside Budmouth last month.

Support staff at the college were notified by a letter, sent out on Monday, April 29, that the Interim Executive Board (IEB) of the college is "faced with the decision of reducing teaching and support staff" by September 1.

The Echo has been told that while support staff roles are at risk the reduction in teaching roles has come from Budmouth not replacing staff who have left.

According to the letter, the savings equate to £301,319 for the next financial year. The college will update staff when it has a clearer idea of future budget savings.

The overall proposal, outlined in the letter, has placed at risk the equivalent of 9.77 full time support staff posts. This includes learning support staff, those working in the sports centre and other support staff.

The letter said: "The IEB has determined that these reductions are necessary in order to achieve an overall saving in staff costs of approximately £600K-£700K."

Reasons were given for these proposals:

  • The Leadership and Governors at the college not taking appropriate action over a number of years to reduce spending costs on staffing, which currently makes up 93 per cent of the college's overall spending for the upcoming year.
  • Funding resources reducing in real terms, particularly in grants from central government.
  • The annual cost of more than £40,000 for the sports centre subsidy.
  • The numbers of students at the college dropping by 61 in the last three years.

A source told the Echo that Budmouth plans to drop the subject of IT at Key Stage 3, despite computing being on the National Curriculum.

They said: "They have told all the IT staff that there is no job for them in September.

"One IT teacher will be still teaching this at GCSE and A Level but down the road it will be impossible to teach the students IT if they haven't done it in the younger years."