TEACHERS are buying classroom essentials and children are turning up to school hungry, a meeting about cuts to school budgets heard this week.

Parents and teachers shared outrage at the financial pressures being put on local schools during an event at Lainesmead Primary School, organised by Swindon National Education Union branch.

Speakers included Mike Welsh, headteacher at Goddard Park Primary, who said: “This is a crisis.You can see children with their coats on because schools can’t afford to get the heating fixed.

“All over Swindon and the country children deserve a decent education and we must not fail them now.

“It’s affecting our children, they only get one chance at school.”

Leo Barker, a teacher at Commonweal School told the Advertiser: “I used to have a bowl of fruit in my classroom but that stuff would go like that. I was spending about £20 a week on fruit.

“We have parents crying when we phone them up because they can’t afford the uniform.”

The meeting brought together unions, parents and teachers to agree efforts to reverse what they see as a dire lack of funding for schools.

Teachers said there was a culture of fear about speaking out and suggested making a note every time they spent money on basic classroom resources and record it anonymously.

“I think it’s quite difficult for teachers to speak out,” added John.”Nobody wants to stick their head above the parapet.”

“We have neutral forums but nothing seems to happen. We need to get parents more involved.”

Parent campaigner Becky Poole, who has a son with ADHD, said schools were hiring classroom assistant apprentices because they could pay them £3.50 an hour.

And some schools were refusing to take on special needs pupils simply because of the financial burden they brought with them.

She said: “The education system at the moment is crumbling.

“I’ve heard stories of children being excluded because schools can’t afford to have them.

“Schools are being asked to fund the first £6,000 of a child’s support.

“How are they going to find that £6,000 if they are already on their knees.

“A lot of schools will not allow these children to come to their school because they just can’t meet their needs.”

Kiri Tunks, president of the NEU, said: “We know that more than 50 per cent of schools across the country are running budget deficits.

“How is that possible in one of the fifth richest countries in the world?” she asked.

“More and more schools are doing crowd funding projects, and that’s not for trips to France, it’s for the basics.”

Robert Buckland, MP for south Swindon, promised to call for more education funding in the chancellor's local government spending review, due sometime this year.

He said: "I speak regularly with head teachers and appreciate the pressures they are experiencing. This government took action to reform Labour's failed funding formula that had been unfair to Swindon. Since 2010, core school funding in Swindon is up by more than £16 million a year plus an extra £48 million to targeted funding for disadvantaged pupils. I was on the front bench for Thursday's debate on schools and will do all I can to make the case for more school funding in the next spending review."