THREE head teachers talked of their fears for their schools under swingeing cuts proposed by the Conservative Government, as a Labour candidate signed a pledge to fight to protect their budgets.

The heads of the Federation of Abbey Schools, Gurney Pease Academy and Borough Road Nursery School in Darlington spoke out as the town's Labour candidate Jenny Chapman signed the pledge to fight to reverse the £3bn real-terms funding cuts that schools across the country are facing.

Darlington schools face a £7m black hole in their budgets by 2020, something that led heads of more than 31 primary and secondary schools in the town to write to every parent in March urging them to lobby the Government on education funding.

Now they are asking each of the five Parliamentary candidates for Darlington to sign the pledge, put together by the National Association of Head Teachers, which also covers teacher recruitment and retention, and adopting fair methods to hold schools to account, as well as ensuring health and social care services are well supported, so schools don't have to make up for cuts to other services.

Julia Thompson, head of Borough Road Nursery School, told Ms Chapman that she is facing a £130,000 loss in her budgets due to the way funding has been changed.

And Alison Sinclair, principal of Gurney Pease, said the school would be one of the hardest-hit by the new education funding formula.

All three said recruitment was difficult, as well as retaining teachers, and all knew recently-qualified teachers who had felt compelled to leave the profession because of the poor work/life balance.

Elaine McCue, head of Abbey, said class sizes were gradually getting bigger, and said she had to make "significant" cuts this year.

Some schools are being forced to make redundancies, while others are not replacing staff who are leaving.

Ms Chapman said: "The Labour party wouldn't be implementing the cuts the government has proposed. The changes to the funding formula are wrong and they should be stopped. There should be a much better dialogue with the teaching profession."

She said she would fight to retain health and social professionals working closely with schools to help pupils, which she said prevented bigger problems longer-term, and would fight any cutbacks in those areas.

Liberal Democrat candidate Anne-Marie Curry is expected to sign the pledge today (Thurs).