TEACHING staff face potential redundancies as a school tackles a £400,000 deficit and overstaffing. 

Furness Academy has entered a third restructuring phase as it fights to reduce a budget deficit of around £400,000.

The Barrow secondary school has already reorganised its senior team and associate staff. Now the academy wants to address student teacher ratios. This phase could involve eight or nine staff. 

Furness Academy has 778 pupils at present. The school says it wants to strengthen pastoral support and work towards being a centre of excellence for science, technology, engineering and maths subjects through its new sponsor. BAE Systems.

The academy will create three new posts, a director of STEM and two assistant directors of STEM.

The 2015 GCSE results were the best ever for the academy and it is on an improvement drive to move out of Ofsted's "requires improvement" category and become a "good" category school.

Headteacher Simon Laheney said: “We continue to act in the best interests of our students and the steps we have taken during this essential reorganisation will ensure Furness Academy is in a position to offer the best possible education it can. 

"Our immediate goal is to be recognised by Ofsted as a 'good' school and then build from there. I'm confident these measures will not only allow the academy to operate on a more sound financial footing, but also strengthen the standard of our teaching by creating three new posts, a director of STEM and two assistant directors of STEM. 

"This is a really positive step forward and working closely with our sponsors BAE Systems, we hope to turn our school into a centre of excellence for science, technology, engineering and maths. 

"This will benefit not only our students, but also the area's employers who will hopefully see Furness Academy as a rich source of future talent.”

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