A school which united pupils and staff in protest is now looking to raise more than £1m over the next five years - with some of the money coming from budget cuts.

Demonstrations were held over Lewisham Council's move to install an interim executive board at Catford's Sedgehill School but the move still took place earlier this year.

Since then, the new board say they have discovered a £906,000 deficit - blamed mainly on salary overspends - at the school and a council meeting next week will discuss plans for £1.02m in savings over a five year period. Along with cuts, the figure will also be met by increasing pupil numbers to get an increase in funding.

But parents say cutbacks are already taking place, with pupils not being offered places on A-Level courses like business, economics, PE and photography, around 40 members of staff handing in their notice and the surprise departure of the school's deputy head just before half term.

Sedgehill has neither confirmed or denied the specifics of those claims, but admits some departing staff will not be replaced and some A-Level courses are "under review".

Board chair Irene Cleaver said: "It has become clear to the Interim Executive Board that the school had been massively overspending its budget. Together with new chief executive Officer Julia Scannell we have drawn up a recovery plan to bring the school’s budget back into balance over the next five years while continuing to improve the learning experience for students and support them to achieve their very best.
 
"The school has been spending well above the average per pupil compared with schools of a similar size and will need to better match the number of staff to the number of pupils. We will tackle this overspend through a combination of measures such as redeploying some support staff and leaving some vacancies unfilled. 

"There has been a review of the sixth form offer to ensure that it enables the best outcomes for students while being affordable within the available budget. Any A-Level courses under review will as far as possible be offered through a partner school or college.  
 
"We can reassure parents that where we have vacancies that need to be filled we have recruited some very high quality staff." 

The issue will be discussed at Mayor and Cabinet at 6pm on June 3.