SCHOOLS are having to lay off teachers and make cuts due to growing pressure on their budgets, the Echo can reveal.

Headteachers are warning of a "funding crisis" caused by budgets not keeping pace with rising costs including fuel, staffing and catering.

Schools across the county are having to make redundancies, not replace teachers on temporary contracts or bring in cuts elsewhere.

And the situation is predicted to get worse in the next financial year.

Parents at Exeter's Stoke Hill Junior School are campaigning to hold on to a teacher after it was announced that a member of staff on a temporary contract was not going to be replaced.

The 330-pupil school also plans to merge Year 4 and Year 5 classes, and parents are worried their children's education may be affected.

The school said it receives around £1m a year. But its funding has not increased at the level of other costs such as energy bills.

Parent Polly Shepperdson said: "It's a great school with above average attainment despite below average funding. The school is doing everything it can to make it work against the odds.

"But nobody can convince the parents that the children's education will not suffer. Ed Balls (Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) has been in the news talking about how much he is doing for the education system. But I can't see any evidence of it."

Stoke Hill headteacher Roy Souter said: "We haven't had mixed aged classes before and most schools do. But we are very confident they will still get a good experience here. We're going to do a good job of it. The teachers are committed to it. Devon provides planning for mixed stage classes which we will use."

Mr Souter said: "No schools have enough money to do all the things they want to do. If we were funded at the level of the average amount for every school nationally, we would be £125,000 a year better off."

The city's Wynstream School, in Wonford, is going through the process of making two redundancies.

Sidmouth College confirmed it would also be making staffing cuts.

Principal Jeremy Roberts said: "All of the people being made redundant are voluntary redundancies, not compulsory redundancies.

"It is not a happy situation to be in, but one we have been able to manage without compulsory redundancies."

Mr Roberts said the measure meant the school's budget is now under control.

"We have set a balanced budget for this year and predict it will be balanced for the next three years — but our funding is only 68 per cent of what we need."

City schools are also having to make other cuts. Mandi Street, principal at Isca College of Media Arts, in Earl Richards Road South, said although the school is not making redundancies, it was not replacing teaching assistants that are leaving.

She said: "The budget situation is really difficult in Devon. We can't fund learning in a way that many schools across the county do and that needs to change.

"It's been difficult to set a budget that balances this year."

Nigel Hughes, headteacher at Montgomery Primary School in St Thomas, said: "We have managed to maintain our staff but it's not been easy."

Louise Herbert, headteacher at Clyst St Mary Primary School, said: "We haven't had to make redundancies. But the budgets are getting tighter and tighter and things are getting more and more difficult."

There are a number of issues affecting school budgets, including the Single Status Agreement, which has driven support staff costs up by 20 per cent.

Energy costs have risen by up to 50 per cent and catering costs have risen by around 14 per cent due to fuel and transport costs.

Richard Newton-Chance, chairman of the Devon Association of Secondary Heads, said things were due to get worse.

"There is an issue this financial year with about eight or nine schools in Devon," he said.

"But the bigger issue is what schools project for 2010 and 2011. Not all schools have returned their budgets for next year, but of those which have, there are 147 with budget deficits.

"Next financial year, it's looking absolutely dire. There is a funding crisis looming for next year across Devon schools."

Devon County Council is coordinating a Fairer Funding for Schools campaign, calling on the Government to give the county's schools a better deal.

Devon's new cabinet member for schools and skills, Councillor Christine Channon, said: "We are not asking for special treatment for Devon schools. We just want our schools and our children to be treated equally and for the Government to put an end to this postcode lottery of education spending."