PARENTS fighting for more cash for the county’s schools will ramp their campaign up with a public meeting.

Former National Union of Teachers president Philippa Harvey will address the meeting on Friday, March 31, which has been organised by the Oxfordshire branch of the Fair Funding For All Schools pressure group.

Last week the Oxford Mail revealed dozens of parents had joined forces in the group after growing concerned by union claims that a proposed new funding formula for schools – plus other funding pressures – could cost schools here £26m by 2019.

This estimate has since been updated on the School Cuts website – run by a group of teaching unions – to more than £30m.

The meeting will be held at Larkmead School in Abingdon and will be attended by its headteacher Chris Harris.

All of the county’s MPs have also been invited to attend, along with Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth.

Helen Brockett, from the campaign, said: “Ed Vaizey has politely declined speaking, however he did say that he would be talking to the Education Secretary yesterday and visiting some of the schools in his constituency this week.

“Our schools are really up against it. We are facing a funding crisis as a result of Government cuts.

“We are a national parent-led campaign and we want to stop the cuts to our schools.

“We want people to come to our meeting and find out how they can join forces to get our voice heard for fair funding for all schools.”

The £30m decrease in funding is estimated by unions based on both the new funding formula, which the Government plans to introduce from 2018/19 , as well as the assumption that inflation will amount to 8.7 per cent during the current parliament.

Calculations also include the assumption the Education Services Grant will be cut by 75 per cent as announced by George Osborne in the 2015 Autumn Statement.

The meeting will start at 7pm and will also be addressed by a parent from Fair Funding For All Schools Oxfordshire.

The proposed new funding formula has been designed by the Department for Education to stop schools in some local authorities getting much more money than others.

Department spokeswoman Jessica Ware said: “We are going to end the historic postcode lottery in school funding and under the proposed national schools funding formula, more than half of England’s schools will receive a cash boost.

“In Oxfordshire, funding would go up by 1.3 per cent, more than £4.6m.”