Last updated at 14:17, Wednesday, 29 February 2012

A second wave of job losses at Carlisle’s two Richard Rose academies will hopefully restore the schools to “sustainable” staffing levels, a union boss said.

Alan Rutter

Related: Carlisle's Richard Rose academy schools to shed 50 more jobs

The federation which runs the Central and Morton academies says that it needs to save a further £1.5 million to balance the books.

As revealed in yesterday’s News & Star, around 50 jobs – one sixth of the workforce – are likely to be axed.

But Alan Rutter, of the teachers’ union the NUT, recognised that the losses were a result of having created the two new academies from three schools in the city – Morton, St Aidan’s and North Cumbria Technology College.

He said: “Obviously, we are disappointed by any job losses but it was always accepted that creating the academies would lead to them having more staff than they could sustain. Because of the extra funding they got they were able to maintain it for a limited period but now they’ve got to get themselves to the same staff ratio as other schools.

“Hopefully, this will be the final part of that process.”

Some staff may go voluntarily, and others may switch to part-time working.

The Federation’s chief executive Mike Gibbons pledged that frontline teaching will be protected.

The 300-strong workforce was told of the job loss proposals at a series of meetings across the two sites yesterday.

First published at 11:25, Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk