PHILIP HAMMOND must release funds to help cash-strapped schools recover from “breaking point,” teachers will demand today.

At a lobby of Parliament, teaching unions will argue the recent announcement of £1.3 billion of funding — cut from other areas — falls “far short” of what schools need to redress successive years of budget squeezes, which they argue add up to a £2.8bn cut.

Rallies in Westminster will be addressed by speakers including Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner and shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

They will urge Chancellor Mr Hammond to put education at the forefront of his Budget on November 22.

National Education Union joint leader Kevin Courtney said: “This lobby is another indication that the government cannot ignore the message they received loud and clear in the general election that our schools are on their knees financially and the public do not accept this should be the case.

“Teachers are now paying for materials out of their own pockets to try to plug the gaps.”

Many schools have cut back on support staff as a result of increasingly restricted budgets.

General union GMB, which represents thousands of teaching assistants and ancillary workers, said staff were living “in fear of the next round of job cuts” at their schools.

“Pupils are suffering as a result,” the union’s national secretary Rehana Azam said. “GMB is fighting to protect jobs in individual chains and schools but the education system desperately needs a national cash injection.

“£1.3bn just isn’t enough and no new money has been put into the education budget. It’s time for Theresa May to recognise the valuable work school support staff do every day and cough up and give schools the proper funding they so desperately need.”

Recent cuts have prompted an increasingly hard line from headteachers’ associations, which have traditionally been more reluctant to be outspoken on political issues.

Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Geoff Barton said: “We welcome the Education Secretary’s commitment to a new formula to address the postcode lottery in school funding.

“But slicing up the cake more evenly cannot disguise the fact that the cake is not big enough in the first place.

“The overall level of education funding is a long way short of what is needed. Schools have already had to make significant cuts to courses, support services and enrichment activities, and there will be further pain to follow without more investment.”