School buildings are not fit for purpose

[noblegiraffe]

It seems to have come as a surprise to some this week that the vast majority of classrooms are not air conditioned and that teaching and learning are hugely reduced during the last weeks of term due to unacceptable temperatures and ventilation levels in classrooms (before you even factor in the heatwave of next week). The DfE's advice for schools during the heat is not about how to enable effective education to continue, but how to monitor children for signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and what to do if a child succumbs. educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/07/14/advice-for-schools-and-other-education-settings-during-a-heatwave/

Don't think they're any better in winter though, freezing classrooms saw kids in coats and hats struggling to learn with windows open for covid while the heating was turned off due to cost. inews.co.uk/news/education/schools-keep-classroom-windows-open-snowing-outside-lack-air-purifiers-1393032 (this will get worse as energy bills have shot up. My school usually turns the heating off at midday in the winter, I can imagine this will be cut even shorter.)

The government have also rejected calls for sprinklers in schools, so they are not safe in the event of a fire schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-snubs-calls-for-sprinklers-in-all-new-schools/

The DfE also think that Grenfell-style cladding is suitable for schools www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9636127/Grenfell-insulation-70-schools.html

The repair bill to bring schools up to a satisfactory safety standard is £11.4 billion, according to the DfE. www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/27/repair-bill-for-schools-in-england-doubles-to-over-11bn-finds-survey

Schools are also riddled with asbestos that isn't being managed safely. The response is that asbestos inspections will start in September www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/schools-face-asbestos-inspections

Given that these buildings are where we send our children to for a large part of their childhood, this is outrageous. Shouldn't we have safe buildings where education can actually take place?

Unsafe and unfit for purpose. Our kids deserve better.

Our only air conditioned rooms are the IT rooms and the server room.
We couldn't afford to run it if we had it: our electricity bill in April was getting on for £20k.

Then we certainly need to look into moving the term dates to avoid kids being in school in England during the hottest part of July.

I note that private schools have broken up already.

That doesn't fix the asbestos, fire safety or winter temperature issues though. Or the leaking classrooms, dodgy electrics, unsanitary toilets etc etc.

We could stop holding up as examples European countries who "cope just fine in these temperatures," when they broke up for the hot summer some time ago.
And who also have siestas .

Yes I'm also surprised that people are surprised. We simultaneously as a country do not wish to invest in education or participate in it in any way then complain that buildings are falling apart and are not equipped to deal with extreme weather. Funding schools seems to have been some fun government game where they increasingly remove funding until it completely falls apart.

The British also seem.not only too deeply in love with uniforms and stupid rules to recognise its impracticalities for most weather conditions , there are business actively rinsing us of our hard earned cash for it all too.

Parties full.of privileged private school kids have no concept of the real world and the challenges children face in schools and the money that takes to deal with. But they are alright so they don't care.

Why?

Completely agree, currently at our school my department (SEN) are fighting for enough actual rooms, no provision seems to have been made for increased SEN provision as our school is expanding. We have one brand new block, and it looks lovely, but they’ve put in an office with a window that doesn’t open and a pottery room but no drying room, which significantly limits is use. No provision is made for exams either and they are constant these days, it’s so stressful to arrange provision.

I’m in the ROSLA block which is constantly too hot or too cold, I believe these blocks were supposed to be temporary when they were put up 40 years ago.

I would say that many hospitals are in a worse position, the number of actual condemned buildings on some hospital sites is shocking.

There was a funded scheme called ‘Building Schools for the Future’ that was addressing schools not being for for purpose. It was scrapped the day after the coalition government won the 2010 general election.

This is why schools are not fit for purpose. Planning for the future was in place. There should have been a public outcry then and we should still be crying out for change …

(… but where are Labour on this?, and why aren’t they making a clearer case for what a Labour government does when it is in power ie designs well-researched, funded long term schemes for ensuring that school buildings are fit for purpose).

One of my friends work for a roofing company who linstalled on schools and basically the number of cash in hand kickbacks involved in the tendering really shocked her and she couldn’t continue working for them because she would be criminally liable.

Its this sort of poor attitude that has got us to this point.

I honestly don’t think we could afford to run air conditioning at my school. Our energy bill (like everyone else) has gone up so much -it’s thousands and thousands of pounds more. The head is talking about having to make redundancies in the Autumn to pay for it.

Sorry @VickyEadieofThigh . I didn’t see this before I evangelised about Building Schools for the Future … what do you think of the programme that has replaced it?

We’ve already made redundancies for September, in core subjects too.

I've had air con in my classroom before. Most of the year it wasn't used but when it was, even having it on for an hour made a massive difference to the quality of learning.

I agree it's shit but there's piss all money for anything.
I've never voted Tory. But in any case, it's not like Labour did anything to improve school buildings either .

I didn’t see this before I evangelised about Building Schools for the Future … what do you think of the programme that has replaced it?

I don’t know what replaced it, but we were due to get a new building under BSF and 12 years of Tory government later we’re still stuck with the shitty old one.

No programme replaced it @noblegiraffe

Building Schools for the Future

I know someone who works in a local academy (primary through to 6th form)
The buildings are very new, and they're having to close at least one building this week as the skylights mean that it's like an oven in there....

I get so cross about the conditions in schools because I passionately believe that the kids I teach deserve better. Kids should be getting the best education possible in state schools, as a society it should be a priority. If it was just me in my room I might be a bit grumpy about it, but because I believe that it’s really important that the children are able to learn well, because I know they will feel more confident in a good environment, im going to fight for it to be as good as it can be.

My own children actually dread certain lessons because the rooms are so uncomfortable, that can’t be right can it?

I’m sure I heard about a school building designed by an architect who made it look great, included air con, and when it came to building it, the air con was removed from the design for cost reasons.

If the architect had known there would be no air con, they’d have designed differently.

British voters consistently elect governments who under invest in public services, then act surprised when services are cut and/or fail. I think there's some weird perversion in the national psyche around the love of moaning tbh.

You seem to feel you are entitled to first class public services but don't want to have to actually pay for them. Even weirder is the general opposition to making the rich and large corporations pay appropriate levels of tax. I assume many feel that by doing so they might one day cost themselves some cash in the unlikely event they become rich.

Kemi Badenoch has already said she plans to get rid of superfluous staff from schools (??!) and reduce the subjects taught.

Cuts to education funding in a time of crisis in order to prop up tax cuts for the wealthy.

Air conditioning? We're in the uk. It's hardly ever hot enough to make that a worthwhile way to spend money. And by the,why, July is no guarantee of hot weather.

The school where I work has a fairly new building. It was a decent temperature in winter until Covid hit and all the open doors and windows turned it into an ice box.

And it would be fine in this weather too, if only the bloody windows opened wide enough. Most classrooms are set up for a through draught, but due to the fact that you can't crank two thirds of the windows open more than about four inches, it's pretty minimal.

In fact, they spent billions on the 'Building schools for the future' programme. This did replace a lot of very decrepit schools but as I indicated above, there were faults with it.