A LIGHT fell out of a ceiling and hit a child at a school which recently had its new building funds slashed. Maggie Rafee, head teacher of Alperton Community School, Ealing Road, Wembley, spoke of the incident on Radio 4 s PM programme last week in a repo

A LIGHT fell out of a ceiling and hit a child at a school which recently had its new building funds slashed.

Maggie Rafee, head teacher of Alperton Community School, Ealing Road, Wembley, spoke of the incident on Radio 4's PM programme last week in a report about how schools with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are being disproportionately affected by the cut.

Ms Rafee said: "This light is new, all of these lights are new. We got them changed when, without warning, the light fell out of the ceiling and actually did just catch a child."

She said 84 per cent of children in the school have English as an additional language, 265 students are from refugee families and 20 per cent are on free school meals.

Alperton was due to get a new school in 2013, under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, but this was cancelled.

According to an Equality Impact Assessment released by Department for Education, through a Freedom of Information request, the stopping of BSF has had a disproportionate affect on disadvantaged pupils in terms of social deprivation.

The affects are slight, but according to Cllr Mary Arnold, Brent's schools' boss, these are groups already affected by cuts.

She said: "Things like teenage pregnancy, advice for children and families, debt advice, have been cut grant by grant, and we haven't been able to plan for it.

"This is another blow.