A SCHOOL which had to pay more than £180,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully challenging another school’s bid to open a rival sixth form has further defended its decision to take court action.

But a top teaching union official says he is “appalled” by the academy school’s legal bill, at a time when restructuring to recoup funds had led to “voluntary redundancies for some support staff, and loss of teaching staff who were on fixed-term contracts”.

The Gazette reported last week that John Kyrle High School and Sixth Form Centre in Ross-on-Wye incurred a £187,000 legal bill over Dene Magna’s sixth form launch in the Forest of Dean, including costs of £55,000 for the Mitcheldean school.

John Kyrle has since said it “had little choice” but to pursue the case, to try and “protect jobs, preserve the breadth of our offer and support our sixth form to thrive for generations to come.”

But in a letter to the Gazette this week, Herefordshire National Education Union district secretary Paul Deneen said: “I was simply appalled to read about the John Kyrle High School and £187,000 being spent on legal costs to try and prevent a school in another county opening its own sixth form…

“Why was the decision made to go for a High Court Judicial Review against another school in the first place?

“In reality, anyone could have told JKHS that the likelihood of success was nil.”

The school launched its sixth form recruitment process for 2021 earlier this month.

And a school spokesperson said last Thursday: “While the number of John Kyrle High School students who want to stay on for our sixth form continues to be very strong, every year we are delighted to welcome a significant number of young people from other schools into our sixth form.

“The introduction of a new sixth form offer puts this influx of students at risk.

“When you are funded on a per-pupil basis, and have built an offer to cater for students from outside our school, any drop in numbers has a tangible impact.

“That is why we went down the legal avenue to protect the sixth form when another provision opened a few miles away. The legal cost of this was £187,000.

“When you consider that the sixth form receives in excess of £8,000 of funding for every student, the cost of the legal fees is equivalent to about 20 students.

“We felt that the challenge was worthwhile to protect jobs, preserve the breadth of our offer and support our sixth form to thrive for generations to come.”

The spokesperson added: “After many years of financial security, the national pressures on education funding, coupled with changes to projected pupil numbers in the sixth form, meant that John Kyrle High School had to make some tough decisions with regard to admin staffing levels in 2019.

“The reality is that, without any positive action, we would have moved from having a £350,000 a year surplus, which enabled us to invest significantly in the school, to a situation where our reserves would be exhausted by 2023.

“That was the first time in 20 years that the school entered a redundancy situation.

“We regretted this enormously, as our business case made clear, but external pressures, both local and national, meant that we had little choice.

“This was despite the considerable savings we had already achieved.”

But Mr Deneen, who used to teach at John Kyrle, said the money from the legal bill should have been spent on teaching and supporting pupils.

And he dismissed the school’s chance of any success in last year’s High Court application for a judicial review of the South West Regional School Commissioner’s approval of Dene Magna’s new sixth form.

He said John Kyrle’s bid was flawed because “the simple facts on the other school” were that “it is based in another county - Gloucestershire; the idea of the new sixth form was strongly supported by its local MP, the pupils, teachers and parents/carers and the local community; and all wanted this new provision/development to happen at their own school”.

He praised John Kyrle’s sixth form for its “excellent results from its pupils” and its “hard working and dedicated teachers and support staff”, but added: “The Department for Education provides funding for pupils at schools on an annual basis. The expectation is that it will be used to provide education and support for pupils who are currently at the school so that they can achieve their very best.”

And questioning why it had taken the school “well over 12 months” to inform parents and carers of the £187,000 bill, he claimed: “In addition to the legal costs, JKHS also restructured staff at its school to try to recoup some funds to pay for the legal costs.

“There was another £107,000 spent on this restructure at JKHS, with voluntary redundancies for some support staff, and loss of teaching staff who were on fixed term contracts.

“In addition, why has the school got two headteachers on salaries of £140,000 and £100,000?

“Add all these sums together and there is a staggering grand total of £534,000!

“All national funding for this school should have been spent for the benefit of teaching and supporting pupils who are currently at the school.

“Sadly, it appears that part of this national funding for JKHS was used for legal fees, voluntary redundancy costs and two headteacher salaries, and this is totally unacceptable.”