Children are sitting on the floor to eat lunch at a school because staff have stopped putting out dinner tables.

Many pupils have to perch on benches and eat their food off their laps but some end up on the floor.

Parents are furious at the cost-cutting measures at Glebe Community Middle School in Southwick.

Dinner ladies at the school are no longer being paid an extra hour's wage to put out and clear away tables for the children to eat from.

The school hopes the move will save £2,000 a year from a tight budget which would be reinvested in paying for classroom assistants.

The move has dismayed parents and child experts who say eating at a table with others is an important part of a child's social education.

Mel Dines has written a letter of complaint to the school, which her daughter Bethany, eight, attends.

Miss Dines, 33, of The Gardens, Southwick, said: "On Tuesday she sat on the floor because there was no room on the benches.

"I think it is disgusting they have to eat where they all walk with muddy shoes.

"First they took away hot school dinners, now the tables, you do wonder what they are going to do next?

"My daughter is tiny, she hasn't got a lap to eat off."

Yvonne Cox, whose son Patrick, nine, goes to the school, said: "It is not so much the hygiene problems, although that is an issue if children are dropping food on the floor but for me it is about table manners.

"We are trying to raise children who are not yobs and the school is not helping."

Paula Hadwell, of St Giles Close, Shoreham, who has two daughters, Jade, 11, and Alice, nine, at the school, said: "The benches they sit on are quite tall so it's not good for the children's posture to be hunched over trying to hold on to something.

"If children are not comfortable they are not going to eat properly and then they will be irritable.

"If you are trying to encourage your children to eat healthily and give them a pasta salad or a banana it is even harder for them to cope with everything balanced on their lap."

Jillian Lindon, a consultant clinical child psychologist based in Sussex, said: "School meal times are social times for children to interact while still in the school environment but not in the lesson context.

"If you are sitting in a line or concentrating on balancing food on your lap it is much more difficult.

"Learning about social skills and learning to interact with other people is very important."

Debbie Lewis, a parenting expert from Curve Coaching, Brighton, said the change could have knock-on effects in terms of behaviour and concentration if the children did not eat properly as a result.

The school declined to comment on the move but, in a letter to parents yesterday, acting headteacher Pauline Marsh said: "Due to budgetary restrictions we have had to review our staffing levels throughout the school.

"Our choices were either to reduce teaching assistant support hours or change our lunchtime arrangements.

"We felt the latter would have the least impact on children's learning and well-being whilst at school."

She said the decision would be reviewed at the end of the summer.

A spokeswoman for West Sussex County Council, said: "The school had to look very closely at its finances and by not employing dinner ladies for an extra hour a day they could save £2,000. The money will be spent employing teaching assistants as they felt that was more of a priority.

"The children have always sat on benches, albeit with tables, to eat their lunch and in the summer term they go outside and sit on the playground or the field."