A NORTH Durham school has hit back at criticisms levelled against it because its bank account contained more than £250,000.

Park View Community Secondary School, in Chester-le-Street, has been criticised by teaching unions after it was revealed to have cash reserves of £282,942.

Headteacher Alan Thompson said the school now holds only half that amount.

The school is the only one in the North-East named by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) in a list of 230 schools with the healthiest bank accounts.

Mr Thompson pointed to Park View's popularity with parents and an extra 30 sixthformers this year, as reasons for the large amount of funding granted to the school.

He said: "It is an historical figure and bares no relationship to where we are now. That money did accumulate, largely due to the success of the school. We are obviously full and the sixth form numbers went up considerably, as did our funding accordingly.

"Also, we are spending around £100,000 on information and communication technology and we employed three new teachers in September."

When asked about the disparity with the budgets of other schools in County Durham, he described funding as a "numbers game".

He said: "All the schools are funded on the same basis, that is, they receive funding according to the same formula which includes pupil numbers.

"We have always had our full quota of pupils and schools with buoyant numbers are more efficient."

Terry Bladen, junior vice-president of the NASUWT and a teacher in Darlington, said there will always be a gulf between the have and have-not schools in the county.

"Some schools get an awful lot of funding but do not use it, while a nearby school will be scraping around, desperate for money," he said.

"If a school has plans for a new building or whatever, then it may be necessary to put money aside, but if they have no major projects lined up and money is just sitting there, then questions have to be asked."

According to the Department of Education and Skills, schools are encouraged to use cash reserves for improvements, but they are expected to have a sensible reserve to deal with emergencies