THE headteacher of a Radcliffe school has written to parents informing them that education is suffering.

Mrs Gill Growden, of Radcliffe Hall CE Methodist Primary School, took the unusual step after being exasperated at the poor level of funding for the borough's schools.

She informed parents that the school will lose one full-time teacher from September 2001 as a result of the Government giving Bury an "appalling" cash allocation.

She said: "In this year's settlement, London boroughs received a six per cent increase, average boroughs received 4.8 per cent and Bury received 3.6 per cent.

"Bury's funding per pupil was the fourth lowest in the country in 1997/98 and we are still no better off!"

The school's cost-cutting measures have already included the deputy headteacher returning to full-time class teaching, a redecoration programme being cancelled, classroom assistants only being employed through Standard Fund Grants and many of the necessary resources needed to implement literacy and numeracy hours not being purchased.

Mrs Growden said: "It is because of these factors that we have had to take the decision to decrease our teaching staff by one full-time teacher and we may have to lose another one next year."

As a result of the staff loss in September, Years 3 and 4 will be split into three classes as opposed to the current four, with each class containing approximately 32 pupils.