THE budgets crisis has forced schools to shed many more teachers than ministers have been prepared to admit, according to a new survey.

It uncovered a widespread belief in town halls up and down England that Education Secretary Charles Clarke will face a repeat of the problems next year.

A few warned that larger classes and even four-day weeks may be necessary in 2004.

The poll by the Press Association of 36 local education authorities revealed their schools lost a total of 304 teacher jobs through a combination of compulsory redundancy, early retirement and natural wastage.

Extrapolating those figures across all 150 LEAs would suggest cash-strapped schools could have lost around 1,260 teachers in 2003.

Mr Clarke has admitted that about 270 have gone during a period in which the Government has promised to recruit an extra 10,000 by the next election.

The LEAs also lost 165 support staff, including classroom assistants.

Headteachers said the survey agreed with their own suspicions that the crisis was far from over.

In May, Mr Clarke told schools they could use £300m earmarked for repairs and maintenance for covering other costs including staff salaries in a bid to avert a wave of politically-damaging teacher redundancies.

Last month, he announced the reversal of £800m of planned cuts to a pot of money aimed at improving results known as the Standards Fund over the next two years.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said Mr Clarke would have to come up with at least another £700m in 2004-6.

"I would be delighted to be proved wrong but, unless we can clearly see something of the order of £1.5bn extra during the next two years, I don't believe Charles Clarke will have pulled it off," he said.

Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said heads only made their staff redundant as a last resort but the loss of jobs "means that the education service is not going to be working as well this year as it should, which is a lamentable state of affairs".

A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman said: "Surveys of this kind have consistently proved inaccurate and unreliable as the situation is still constantly evolving.

"We fully acknowledge the difficulties that some schools have faced and the measures we have introduced for the next two years are the right basis for tackling the situation. We will continue to work with schools and LEAs to ensure the situation is improved."