SIXTH forms are set to expand dramatically despite pressure on school budgets.

The council has been handed £1 million from the Government to deal with a rapid rise in demand for further education.

Trinity High School in Mornington Road, Woodford Green, Woodbridge High School in St Barnabas Road, Woodford Green, and Valentines School in Ilford will benefit from the grant.

If required, Woodbridge High School will be able to take on 80 more students from this year - despite losing two support staff in October 2011 due to budget cuts.

Bob Archer, National Union of Teachers (NUT) president for Redbridge, said: “I’m very glad to see there’s an expansion of people taking further education, but it makes the sacking of the two support staff pointless.”

“It will be harder for teachers to cope with more pupils without an extra pair of hands to take care of other duties.”

Trinity High School in Mornington Road, Woodford Green, is set to build a £500,000 sixth form block to house 60 new pupils from September 2012.

It would contain two new classrooms, a sixth form centre and study facilities.

Head of sixth form, Rob Healey, said: “It’s fantastic news for us. It will pretty much be state of the art and gives us the space we need to teach our new arrivals.”

He added that the school will not increase staffing numbers and that the only issue was housing the pupils.

He said: “What we have is a staffing flexibility and we’re creative with the timetable, with some classes taking place after school.”

Valentines School, in Cranbrook Road, Ilford, will accrue 50 additional students and has been allocated £122,590 to adapt the school to provide a new science teaching block for the children.

Cabinet is set to agree to use £120,000 available from the Children’s Services Capital Programme for expansion projects and £166,100 from the Department of Education for disabled access.

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