WARRINGTON schools' budgets are being stretched, leading to fear over the support being provided for students with additional needs.

A new report has been released by the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT), and it has warned that 95 per cent of schools will not have a balanced budget next year.

This is based on projections for spending on salaries and increased running costs.

Schools are not permitted to run on a budget deficit, which means that many schools are looking at reducing spending, and even making redundancies.

One of the areas that the report highlights could suffer is the provision of Special Educational Needs or Disability (SEND) support in schools.

At the same time, the Government's education watchdog - Ofsted - is urging schools to provide more SEND support.

Each school in Warrington is required to have a SEND coordinator (SENDCO) who is responsible for overseeing the provision of additional support within their school.

One SENDCO - who will remain nameless - spoke to the Warrington Guardian about the reduced funding and rising costs that are facing schools, and her fears about the provision of support in schools.

She said: "We aim to keep children in the classroom with their peers as much as possible but at times we do need to provide out-of-class support.

"Without the funding to provide extra members of staff, this specific intervention (speech and language therapy, motor skills interventions, social communication groups) is just not possible.

"I worry that as time goes on, there will be even more needs to meet with even fewer resources and this does scare me."

When asked if lack of funding will lead to a lack of SEND support in her school, she said: "We will always go above and beyond for our children and even when we don't have the SEN funding to support needs, we will pull this money out of our budget however with an increase in all costs and budget cuts across the school, this is something that we may not be able to continue to do moving forward."

An increase in students with English as an additional language (EAL) is also taking time away from students who require additional support.

The SENDCO said: "We, alongside many other primary schools in Warrington, have also had an increase in our EAL numbers with children joining us who have English as an additional language, this takes time to help and support these children so that they can also thrive with their education.

"This time is normally spent helping and supporting our SEND needs but unfortunately, it is just not possible to split yourself into three; to support the majority of children in the class, EAL children and SEN children."

The report suggests that 66 per cent of schools are looking into reducing the number of teaching assistants provided, and 50 per cent are looking to reduce the number of teaching staff available.

Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said: “Schools are being hit by a perfect storm of costs. In attempting to balance their budgets, school leaders are being faced with eye-watering energy bills, spiralling costs to resources and supplies, and the financial impact of an unfunded pay increase this year."

He added: "With no fat left to cut following a decade of austerity, many thousands of schools are now looking at falling into deficit unless they make swingeing cuts.

"Education is truly in a perilous state.”