HEADTEACHERS in West Devon are urging parents to help their campaign to end 25 years of underfunding in the county's schools.

Parents, governors and teachers are being asked to write letters direct to Government, lobbying for change in the current funding system.

Forty local education authorities across the country are involved in the F40 campaign, which seeks to bridge the gap between the best and the worst funded authorities.

Now headteachers, MPs and local councillors, who handed a 56,000 signature petition to 10 Downing Street in July, are urging parents to help step up the campaign, before the consultation period on proposals for a new grant distribution formula ends on September 30.

The four options proposed by the Government have not been accepted by F40, because they fail to address all the issues of concern.

As a result, the group has put forward a fifth option, which would achieve better and fairer financial settlements for all the currently worst funded authorities.

The option would include a greater shift of resources into the basic allowance per pupil — and a move away from distribution of funds through additional educational needs.

Currently, the national average funding per school pupil is £3,127, but in Devon it is £2,932 — a gap of £195 per pupil.

As a largely rural county, Devon also faces one of the highest school transport bills in the country, but that is not taken into account under the current funding system.

West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett, who arranged the Downing Street meeting where the Devon contingent also met Prime Minister Tony Blair, said if the Government was making an allowance for deprivation, it needed to take into account the amount of people who were in receipt of Working Families Tax Credit — not just Income Support.

'In rural areas like Devon there is a great reluctance by people to claim income support and because of this, the deprivation of the area is not always evident,' he said.

'In addition, the Government must take the sparsity element into account and the large cost of school transport — I am astonished that it makes allowance in the formula for transport to primary schools but not secondary schools.'

Mr Burnett said Devon was not asking to be made a special case, but the all-party campaign was about 'fair play'.

'We need everybody to join in and help us try and break the stranglehold which has blighted our county and our children's prospects for more than 25 years,' he said.

All headteachers in Devon have this week received an F40 campaign pack with details of where to write to ministers and how letters should be worded.

John Simes, principal of Tavistock College, is asking his sixth-form students as well as staff and parents to write to the Government.

He said the 1,900 pupil college lost out on funding amounting to a staggering £600,000 a year.

Mr Simes said: 'I feel my older pupils should be involved — this cause will affect them and their families in the future.

'As far back as I can remember, authorities like Devon have been the Cinderellas in this — the assumption is that pupils in rural areas are well-behaved and well-motivated, but their needs are the same as children in urban areas. It is wrong that pupils in Tavistock are treated unequally in this day and age.

'We could move mountains with an extra £600,000 a year and help create great schools for the future.'

Joe Flynn, headmaster at Tavistock Primary School, said: 'Unless we get more funding next year, I will be forced to cut teaching staff which will break my heart.

'It is really, really sad. We are an excellent school with high standards, but will no longer be able to carry on what we are doing. We can't even begin to talk about improving things.'

Mr Flynn is sending out letters to parents, urging them to lobby MPs and Education Minister Estelle Morris to highlight the school's plight.

'We are one of 40 low funded LEAs in the country — we just want to know why funding is so unevenly distributed,' he said. Hopefully, the Government will not be able to ignore 40 LEAs all saying the same thing.'

Mr Flynn said the primary school loses out on funding to the tune of £85,000 a year at present levels.

'I could pay two full-time teachers and a class room assistant with that sum,' he said.