A POPULAR cash-strapped secondary school could close early everyday as it faces “enormous financial pressures”.

Woodhey High School is planning to reduce the school week after being forced to make savings of £220,000 this September.

Headteacher Brian Roadnight told The Bury Times about the difficult decision he and his governors had to make in going to parents asking them about plans to cut the school week.

Woodhey High School, according the School Cuts website the school has lost £776,851 between 2015 and 2019, although this figure is considered to under-estimate of the actual cuts suffered by the school.

The school cuts website states that Bury schools have as a whole have lost £28.1 million — equating to a loss of £347 per pupil — from their budget.

Under the proposals — currently out for consultation —from September the school will close school an hour and 15 minutes early on Wednesdays and 15 minutes early on all the other days. The start of the school day will stay the same.

Break and lunch times would be reduced by 15 minutes and additionally on Wednesday one timetable period would be removed from the timetable.

Mr Roadnight said he wished he did not have to put these proposals forward _ but the alternative would mean larger class sizes as savings would include the loss of four and half members of staff — who have secured jobs elsewhere.

He said: “We have made savings everywhere we can. It was a difficult decision to go to parents with this proposal. Bigger class sizes would impact on all the pupils and we have been able to mitigate the changes by changing the way we deliver PHSE and year groups would lose a bit of something.

“We have cut everything we can.”

Teaching hours of some subjects will be brought in line with other schools to enable the restructure to take place.

Mr Roadnight said that all subjects meet the national benchmark and changes would allow the school to “maintain the highest standards”.

As part of the proposals all teachers would use the time on Wednesday for planning and preparation, rather than it being timetabled in individually during the week — which could help teachers enhance their lessons plans by working together.

Teachers at the school will teach the same number of hours and work the full length of the day.

Woodhey High School, according to its Ofsted report, has a higher than average number of proportion of pupils gaining good qualifications is consistently higher than national averages.

It is the latest in a number of schools nationally to cuts its hours to manage financial pressures.

Mr Roadnight said if the plans were given the greenlight then the school would explore ways of supervising vulnerable students if they could not be cared for until the end of the traditional school day.