Senior managers of Crest Boys' academy, where teachers are in dispute over redundancies, stayed at five star City hotel

Senior managers of an academy school where teachers are in dispute over compulsory redundancies spent more than £4,000 of public money on fine food and boutique hotel accommodation on a "team-building exercise".

Leaked documents show that nine staff from Crest boys' academy in Neasden, north London, in one of Britain's most deprived boroughs, stayed at the five star Threadneedles hotel in London. They ate in the hotel restaurant before retiring to rooms that cost up to £339 a night.

Crest boys' academy is run by E-Act, a charitable trust recently criticised for paying its director general, Sir Bruce Liddington, £265,000 a year.

Hank Roberts, honorary secretary of Brent Teachers' Association, called on the government to urgently examine the finances of the trust and the academy. The team-building visit took place in October, four months before the academy's newly appointed headteacher, Keith Miller, said he had to sack seven teachers to balance the books, which led to a teachers' strike.

Some of the senior managers travelled by taxi to the hotel. Miller and two of his colleagues stayed in rooms at £339 a night. According to the bill, a Hennessy brandy costing £7.50 and three Staropramen lagers costing £13.50 were charged to Miller's room at 3.26am. The total cost of the stay was £4,406, and at least £341 was spent on alcohol.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said all of the hotel bill was reimbursed from department funds except £341 which was paid towards alcohol.

The alcohol bill had been covered by the academy, a spokesman for E-Act said, but the headmaster had offered to repay the alcohol bill in full.