I run an infants school in Bury, Greater Manchester. We have 284 children on the roll, which includes the nursery.

Our local authority has made cuts in our budget every year that GM schools have been in existence.

Last year my school had to find a cut of Pounds 32,500 on a budget of Pounds 333,000 and this year we are told that the cut will be of the same order, on this already reduced budget.

Not having opted out - not having wished to opt out because I felt it was a totally selfish act, taking away funding from other local authority schools - and having watched my own and other schools suffer cuts in our funding in order to make lavish sums available to those willing to collaborate in what has been nearly the dismantling of the local-authority school system, my response to this article was incredulity.

Am I supposed to feel concern that grant-maintained schools have problems now when they showed no concerns about the state schools they were leeching money from during their heyday?

The staff who have been appointed have been appointed with funding which was unfairly allocated in the first place.

They who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Serves them right!

CHRIS HEALD

Headteacher Radcliffe county infant school Bury Greater Manchester