Funding cuts 'threaten future of England's top school' It comes just a day after Colyton was named as the top-performing school in league tables covering more than 4,000 state-funded and private secondaries in England. Pupils at the school scored the equivalent of around 15 A* grades each, it emerged. Last night, the Department for Education insisted that school funding had been protected in recent years. But Mr Evans told the Telegraph: "Schools like ours, with able children, are being squeezed. And it's not just our school. I went to a grammar school heads" conference in the summer and I know some are saying that they just can't see where the future lies." This week, the head teacher wrote to three local Conservative MPs, claiming a number of funding changes were having a damaging effect on state grammars, particularly those in rural areas. He highlighted a series of reforms including the cost of meeting staff pay rises from a "flat budget settlement" and the loss of cash for "specialist school" status, which is now consumed into the national education budget. In his letter, he said changes had "significantly diverted funds toward students from deprived families and with low prior attainment," adding: "These laudable aims have, however, had serious unintended consequences on the budgets of schools, selective or comprehensive, serving significant populations of able students." Mr Evans said the school had been particularly hit by changes to the way sixth-form qualifications are funded which will see all schools given a flat rate for each pupil - scrapping the existing system based on the number of A-levels taken. This hits grammar schools particularly hard because their pupils typically take up to five A-levels each, he said. Mr Evans said these difficulties were compounded by the fact that schools in Devon already receive less money per head than those in almost all of England's 151 local education authorities. "I believe the cuts required to achieve a balanced budget will so limit our curriculum that we may cease to be an attractive option for parents," he said. The viability of this school is questionable beyond 2017. In the run up to the General Election in 2015, we will be cutting courses and making teaching staff redundant in attempt to reduce our potential £257,000 deficit. Charlotte Marten, chairman of the Grammar School Heads Association and head of Rugby High School, said similar difficulties were being faced elsewhere. "There is the prospect of grammar schools not being able to stretch and challenge or give the breadth that they have traditionally been able to do because the funding is not in place," she said. A DfE spokesman said: "We have protected the schools budget in real terms. That has allowed us to ensure all local authorities, including Devon, are receiving the same amount per pupil as in 2010. It is down to local authorities to determine exactly how that funding is distributed to individual schools, but we have made sure that no school's budget falls by more than 1.5 from one year to the next. Of course if any school finds itself in particular difficulty, we are happy to look into the circumstances of their case.