Suffolk schools are in the middle of a "full-blown funding crisis" and may be forced to dip into their reserves or cut back on staffing, school leaders have said.

Just days away from the start of the new school year, schools in the county are struggling with spiralling energy price rises, unfunded pay increases and rampant inflation.

School leaders have warned of redundancies, bigger class sizes and cuts to the curriculum.

Jane Reason, executive headteacher at The Albany, an alternative provision in Bury St Edmunds, said: "We're looking at quite a significant challenge and, I would say, all schools are.

"All of the things that are causing a crisis for your everyday person in the street are causing a crisis for any public sector body.

"The issue is that our budgets aren't increasing, but our costs are increasing. So everything is incredibly squeezed."

Ms Reason said the school was "prudently" expecting to dip into its reserves next year to make up the shortfall in funding.

Among the added costs was the expectation energy will increase around fourfold.

She added that post-Covid schools had found recruitment more difficult and staff were now unable to afford to travel to work – particularly in rural areas.

"Schools will have fewer staff because they can't afford them or because they couldn't afford to come to work," she said.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, and a former headteacher in Bury St Edmunds, said: “We’re extremely concerned that the new term will see schools and colleges in the midst of a full-blown funding crisis and that they will have to make impossible choices about where to make cuts.

"The problem is that they are facing huge increases in energy bills as well as pay awards for which there is no additional government funding.

"The last thing they want to do is cut educational provision but with massive extra costs and not enough money to pay for them there is only one way this is going to go. Leadership teams will be looking at a range of options which are likely to include larger class sizes, reducing curriculum options, cutting back on teaching assistants, and putting capital projects on hold which had been planned to improve student facilities.

"We’ll be consulting with them closely over the coming weeks to get a more detailed idea of the decisions they are having to make so that we can try to get the government to understand how serious this situation is.

"At present, we are being told by the government that it thinks the extra costs are ‘broadly affordable’ because of the funding announced in last year’s spending review, but this completely ignores the fact that at school-level funding allocations and financial circumstances vary widely across the sector.

"It is perfectly clear that many schools and colleges cannot remotely afford these extra costs within their existing budgets.”

A spokeswoman for Suffolk County Council said: "The council remains concerned about the level of funding for Suffolk schools and we continue to lobby central government on the issue.

“School budgets are under real pressure and the concerns of headteachers are very real. At this stage, we are not hearing about redundancies or a reduced four-day school week.”