A HEADTEACHER has rejected claims his Wantage school is at “crisis point” following staff redundancies.

Support staff at King Alfred’s Community and Sports College raised concerns about the effect the job cuts were having on pupils’ education.

Last week they said the cuts – made to reduce costs – had left some staff doing the work of three people and had resulted in a “crisis point” in morale.

But headteacher Nick Young hit back at the claims and said the vast majority of almost 300 staff working at the school were happy.

He said: “You just need to look at our GCSE results, which were the best of any state school in Oxfordshire, to see the staff here are not downtrodden.

“We’re trying to face up to the future.

“Everyone here does a fantastic job and we have a vigorous complaints procedure, where they can raise any issues they have and we work hard to deal with any problems.”

Mr Young also rejected claims of a “top-heavy staff infrastructure”.

The school has two vice-principals and 10 assistant principals.

He said: “The vice-principals and assistant principals are on different wage structures and do a lot of teaching work.

“However, with perhaps a 10 per cent (funding) cut under a Conservative government, I can’t guarantee there won’t be further redundancies.”

Over the summer, six support staff left as voluntary or compulsory redundancies and three teachers also departed.

They worked in the library, science support, catering, computing and technical support.

The college, which has sites in Challow Road, Portway and Springfield Road, became the county’s first foundation school in January 2007, allowing it to manage its buildings and employ its own staff.

Assistant principal Jo Halliday, the head of Key Stage Three, said: “We have a winning formula.

“We even have teachers running many after-school clubs and societies in their own time and the take-up rate for our pupils is extremely high.”

French teacher Rob Weston said: “After I saw the story and read comments on the website from people criticising the handling of the budget I just thought ‘don’t they realise there’s a recession on?’”

Dennis Burson, the head of creative arts, added: “I’ve been at the school both as man and boy and it’s the atmosphere that made me want to come back as a teacher after I left as a pupil.”