THE city’s schools have been labelled “broken” by headteachers battling to cope with spiralling demand for help from struggling families.

Neil Morris, headteacher at the 1,500-pupil-strong Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcester, said he was facing “huge problems” with attendance dropping and staff, pupils and families continuing to struggle.

These include:

  • Hungry children stealing from supermarkets.
  • Schools having to buy shoes and winter coats for pupils.
  • Years long waiting lists for mental health services 

On the eve of the first teacher’s strike, Mr Morris said the under-pressure St John's school was now forced into spending more than £250,000 on staff and services that he said were not needed a decade ago and running into debt over rocketing food bills.

Waiting lists for essential mental health services are no longer months-long and are running into years and schoolchildren are resorting to stealing food from supermarkets to ensure they do not go hungry during lessons.

Schools are also having to buy shoes and winter coats for pupils as referrals to food banks soar.

“We spend £256,000 on what I would say, ten years ago, we wouldn’t have spent on,” he said. “We have three counsellors, that’s for staff and for students, we have three attendance officers, we have our own education welfare officer, we do it ourselves.

“We are spending a huge amount on food. We have children stealing food from Sainsbury’s. The system is broken.”

Mr Morris said hard-pressed schools were constantly on the lookout for cash – needing tens of thousands of pounds every year just to stay afloat – as more and more cuts were made to slender budgets already cut to the bone.

“Everything has been cut,” he said. “There is nothing left to cut. So unless we do it, there is nothing else we can do. We are constantly looking for money. We try and raise £40,000 to £50,000 a year just to keep going.

“It’s incredibly sad and incredibly tough.”

The situation is equally as bleak in the city’s primary schools with staff pushed to feed and buy shoes and winter coats for children.

Kate Wilcock, headteacher at Pitmaston Primary School, in St John's who was invited to speak to city councillors alongside Mr Morris to tell them what it was like ‘on the ground’ said the pressure on schools was “overwhelming” with referrals from the school to the city’s foodbanks tripling recently.

She said teachers and school staff continue to struggle with many teaching assistants, on low wages, forced to give up and find work elsewhere because of rising costs.

At the meeting in the Guildhall on Monday (January 30), Mrs Wilcock also described the struggles at Bishop Perowne CE College in Worcester, Merriman's Hill, on behalf of headteacher Jane Price who said the number of children being offered free school meals was higher than ever and increasing year-on-year.

A campaign by the school, in association with the Salvation Army, to offer support with presents and food on Christmas Day last year received 74 calls from struggling parents in just two days.

She also revealed how the school is having to spend thousands of pounds to make sure children had shoes and winter coats and was falling into debt by having to spend £7,000 in one term alone to feed pupils.

We have contacted Worcester MP Robin Walker, who is chairman of the Parliamentary education committee, for comment.