IN a recent letter to the Advertiser, I stated the school funding gap between a Redditch and a Birmingham child stood at £750 LESS and not £300 as Kath Banks had written (Letters, July 6).

The gap has almost TREBLED in the last eight years alone from £260 in 1997.

The Department for Education and Skills website has been updated to include the figures for 2005-06. Now the cash gap has increased to a whopping £840 LESS (£90 in one year alone).

Perhaps Redditch parents would join me in asking their own MP, who is also the schools minister, as to why.

Birmingham children are not now three times more deprived in 2005-06 than they were than Worcestershire children back in 1997.

In any case, school funding is determined by the postcode of the school and does not take into account where children live or any children who live in one county but go to school in another.

HELEN DONOVAN

St Margarets Road

Evesham