TORY education cuts are forcing school headteachers to choose between repairing leaking roofs or providing help to vulnerable children, a survey revealed today.

A survey of headteachers in Calderdale, Yorkshire, confirmed, at local level, the nationwide funding crisis in England’s primary schools.

The survey, published as kids went back to school following the half-term break, was carried out by campaign group Calderdale Against School Cuts (CASC) with a response from 90 per cent of heads in the district’s 84 primary schools.

Comments from headteachers revealed that a lack of adequate finance meant that headteachers are “unable to support our most vulnerable pupils.”

And one headteacher said: “All of our funding for maintenance over the past seven years has been spent on our roof which is still leaking and we now have mushrooms and fungi growing on classroom walls.”

Another report said that their school was “currently running on a skeletal support staff structure” and a fourth said that redundancies were made across the school board including teaching, support and ancillary staff.

“We have not been able to recruit staff to support children with complex special educational needs or emotional needs,” a fifth headteacher said.

CASC’s Sue McMahon said: “This survey is a wake-up call for those that deny we have a funding crisis. It’s either supporting the vulnerable or fixing the roof.

“It’s not a case of bad management, more a case of chronic government underfunding. Not replacing staff is now the reality, not a choice.”