A LONG serving headteacher will leave his post next month because he doesn't want to face the prospect of more cost-cutting.

Alan Beedie, aged 53, said "ever-decreasing budgets" were a "significant factor" in his "difficult" decision to resign the headship of Horwich Parish CE School at the end of this academic year.

He has been at the school for just under 13 years, and recently taken the school from requires improvement to good, with Ofsted, after visiting the school last November, finding the school is full of "enthusiastic learners" who want to 'succeed'.

He was one of seven headteachers in Horwich to put their names to a letter to parents about proposals to school funding changes. The letter outlined the challenges facing schools of diminishing budgets and rising costs, leading to difficult decisions having to be made by headteachers — including re-structuring, prioritising resources and providing minimal costs to maintain older buildings that demand repair work.

The letter states: "The new changes proposed for 2018-19 will make the budgets in all of our schools and many across the country untenable by 2019."

It added that £620,665 is projected to be lost across the eight primary schools. According to the website quoted in the letter — www.schoolcuts.org.uk — Horwich Parish CE Primary could lose as much as £144,849 by 2022.

Mr Beedie said: "In general terms it is increasing difficult for headteachers to continue to maintain and raise standards with ever-decreasing budgets, and that has been a significant factor in my decision to leave."

Julia Simpkins, secretary of the Bolton-branch of the National Union of Teachers, said schools are already making cuts.

She said: "What we are seeing is that many primary schools have cut back on everything they can cut back on and now they are having to cut back on people.

"They cannot cut back on teachers because you have to have a teacher in every class, so what is happening is they are cutting back on classroom assistants.

"When I was a child there were 42 children in my class with one teacher and that is what we are going back to."

Amanda Hulme National Association of Head Teachers' regional president and headteacher of Claypool Pool Primary School said budget concerns were a huge concern for headteachers and those looking to become headteachers.

She said: "New headteachers want to be innovative and make a difference and now they are dealing with funding issues and possibility of redundancies.

"Schools have been frugal, but I imagine many will be in deficit in the coming years."

She added: "Schools are in a situation where the Parents Friends and Teachers Association are having to fundraise to buy books for the library for children."

Mr Beedie, who is married with two grown-up children, will now take time to plan the next chapter of his life

The headteacher, who lives in Bury and led Emmanuel Holcombe CE Primary School for eight years, said: "It was a difficult decision to make, the school is graded good and doing well, and I feel it is the right time for me to be moving on, I have been here a long time.

"It is time for a fresh start and new leadership with a the right person to take the school on."

He added: "I will be treating myself to a 'gap' year as I have never had the opportunity to have one.

"Then I will see what comes up, there a couple of volunteering opportunities but I don't know exactly what I will be doing."

Mr Beedie, who attended Derby High School in Bury, then Peel College and St Anne's College Oxford, said he had been privileged to have been in a role which make a difference to children's lives.

He said: "I will miss the children and the whole experience to make a difference to their lives. Being a headteacher is an influential position."

During his leadership, Mr Beedie has overseen a big extension to the Key Stage One building.

Mr Beedie said: "I have maintained the reputation and ethos of the school with growing number of children coming here. They enjoy a varied curriculum."

He said he was proud to have played a role in the Church of England School.