Headteachers are considering cutting back their schools’ teaching hours to cope with the funding squeeze, the leader of the Association of School and College Leaders has warned.

Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the heads’ union, said he was aware of school leaders who were thinking about paring down the number of lessons their schools offer each week.

While there have been reports that some schools are considering moving to a four-day week because of budget pressures, Mr Trobe said this might be “technically illegal” and it was more likely schools would shed teaching hours on certain days.

Speaking on the first day of ASCL’s annual conference in Birmingham, Mr Trobe said: “What I have heard a number of people thinking about is that they will reduce the number of lessons in the week - I think that is a more realistic possibility.

“For example, if you normally run 25 one-hour lessons a week, you may go down to 23 [with] a shorter Wednesday and a shorter Friday.

“There are number of people who are at that stage.”

Schools ‘could lose subjects’

Mr Trobe said the “bulk” of school cuts would fall on staff, and he warned that this could mean some schools would “lose a subject… off a timetable”.

Sian Carr, the ASCL president, said that if hours were squeezed this would also reduce the amount of time for extracurricular activities.

Mr Trobe said ASCL would be urging headteachers to lobby their local MPs on the issue of funding.

“The main thing we’re trying to say to members is, ‘You have got to exert political pressure’,” he said.

He said schools had been “reluctant to put their heads above the parapet” in recent years, but now needed to “get together collectively as a group of schools” to lobby their MPs.

Referring to recent campaigns for more school funding in West Sussex and other areas, Ms Carr said: “The movement that you can see at that local level is something I have not seen for a very long time, and I think it is becoming very effective”.

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