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.

bennewmark.wordpress.com/2021/06/09/catch-up-make-schools-cooler-in-summer/

This blog post talks about the amount of learning lost to too hot classrooms. It gets pretty bad in schools every summer, even without extreme heat warnings.

"As I’m remembering I’m wondering how many hours were lost to this temperature – how much learning didn’t happen because although we did our best it was really just too hot to remember anything much at all. I’m also wondering how many thousands and thousands of hours this would add up to if we totted up all the time lost in English classroom every summer and how much more we would all learn if we just got bloody air conditioning, or built classrooms that weren’t the sort of glass boxes that look great in an architects drawing but are a nightmare to be in."

Waste of money, or investment in education?

I'm afraid I can't give you an answer - I stopped working in school in 2007!

Superfluous staff??!!!

I was talking with someone recently who has been involved in a lot of new build schools and similar about the emergency repairs and adaptations that happen so often with too many architects and designers don't consider solar gains, likely storm wind, or much else about how the geography is going to affect the site or things like the architect not being told that air conditioning or similar won't work or no one understands certain parts of the design after one person leaves. There is a lot of lack of communication and consideration making parts of new builds not fit for purpose, and it's obviously only worse in older buildings.

I know schools that would love to get more shaded places or other what could be thought of as 'simple' adaptions from having something installed that doesn't require major changes or construction to fulfill a need that isn't being met as is, but the funding won't go that far and the kids and staff suffer. Pile on the supposed goal of sustainability/getting carbon neutral with only a shoestring and a prayer to do it, it's ridiculous.

Public schools have broken up already because we work significantly longer days than our state school colleagues. If you want 8.5 weeks at summer and to avoid the hotter weather then you and the students would need to work until at least 4pm if not 5pm everyday.

School holidays are not a class thing, we still work the same amount of teaching periods, just over a shorter space of time.

What happened was the coalition government halted it the day after the 2010 GE election. There has been no subsequent programme for the improvement of school buildings.

There was a school on my road that moved all the students to a temporary location while their school was rebuilt through BSF. Then the funding was pulled. A generation of children had to trek to the other side of the borough while the now derelict school was used occasionally as a film set.

Eventually, half the site was sold to build flats, and the rebuild was completed at half-size with, what is essentially an off-the-shelf could-be-any-type-of-building. When the students returned (seven years’ later, so not the same ones!), the school was in critical financial shape because it was now so undersubscribed because of the uncertainty and disruption.

It may not have been perfect @VickyEadieofThigh but posters like @greenteafiend are under the impression that Labour neglected this issue. They didn’t. BSF was building schools: a lot of them. The Tories not only failed to continue this essential work, but their sudden mothballing of the project caused untold damage to generations of children whose schools were about to undergo building works.

I know! See my post a few above yours.

Were the majority of schools built under one party then? Just another box-ticking, look how left and liberal I am exercise though interesting that you're so entrenched in the DM!
The real sutuation is that we live in a moderate climate, with occasional very hot days and very cold days. Can I assume that the OP, and the rest of her fans, would be glad to see billions spent for a few days a year, not withstanding that there needs to be greater investment in school buildings for the rest of the year? Installing aircon would be a waste and expensive to run.

Can I assume that the OP, and the rest of her fans

God I wish I had a fan in my room.

I’m going to bring in an illegal one from home on Monday.

Locally, that isn’t true. Private primary and prep schools have exactly the same, or slightly shorter, school days as the state ones, but have much longer holidays. The secondaries do have longer days of ‘extra curricular provision’ (though the state secondaries also have a wide programme of clubs, matches, concerts etc) but their teaching days are pretty much the same as their state equivalents.

I appreciate it may be different elsewhere - when I was at boarding school on a scholarship, lessons went on to 6.30 pm plus Saturday mornings - but it is not universally true that private ‘compensate’ for their dramatically longer holidays with longer days.

I didn’t say longer summer holidays, I said rejigging the term dates. Same length, different timing.

That said, we do have some of the shortest summer holidays in Europe, so longer summer holidays would also work.

And that's a whole other thread right there... Working 121 with challenging children really opens your eyes to just how little some parents care for their offspring

I’m also wondering how many thousands and thousands of hours this would add up to if we totted up all the time lost in English classroom every summer.

This doesn't even make sense. It only matters how many hours an individual child would lose on learning. Just timesing it up for all the children makes it sound bad but actually means little. There are 10m children in school say they lost three hours a summer, that's 30m hours lost. Lots more than your blog suggests. But in reality, it's minimal for children.

Loads of money has been spent on schools in the last decade.

Absolutely loads of 70s style comps pulled down and replaced by shiny new academies. The design is terrible, but it isn’t for lack of money spent.

"Can I assume that the OP, and the rest of her fans,"

Hmm, and what do you mean by this? I don't recognise your username, so perhaps you've name-changed since the good old days of the teacher-bashing Covid threads. Why would you otherwise deduce that the OP has "fans" from this thread?

Shining are you confused with the Building Schools for the Future programme which was pre-2010?

Probably; I’m no expert, but they all seem to have sprung up post 2010 here. But we are behind generally

They are AWFUL!

Nothing to add but this thread has been really interesting. After working as a commercial analyst for a couple of big companies for the last 17 years I've recently joined the education sector in a data role. I'm in a school that's had quite a bit spent on it cosmetically over the years but the facilities are appalling.

It's 50/50 if the sink in the staff room actually works and there seems to be no real process around getting stuff like that fixed.

(Ditto with getting equipment etc but not the purpose of the thread)

Loads of money has been spent on schools in the last decade.

Shining are you confused with the Building Schools for the Future programme which was pre-2010?

So the Labour Party is responsible for the poor designs of the schools and no air conditioning? 🤔 That explains it.

So the Labour Party is responsible for the poor designs of the schools and no air conditioning?

I don't know which schools have air con, a lot of the Labour PFI ones suffer from poor design. But my school is horribly hot with no air con and was built way, way before then. I'd have to google to see who was in power at the time.

I remember in one place I taught they'd put one extra wide toilet cubicle to facilitate students with extra mobility needs. But the cubicles weren't long enough so when you opened the extra wide door it would hit the toilet pan and you sort of had to shuffle round it. A plumber solved the problem when he had to replace the toilet. He opened the door fully, fitted the toilet, and as a result wedged the door between the toilet and the wall. It stayed like that for months.

To be honest, I'd rather they spent money on cleaning the schools properly than on air conditioning. Once you see the dirt, it cannot be unseen.

I think there are mostly three types:

The very old buildings, often primary or traditional schools.

Horrible 70s ones

Shiny new academies.

My comment was tongue in cheek. Because isn't the point that is not a party political issue, it's a problem with the planners either in the CS or at local level. Both political parties have put up the money for buildings, surely the people who spend that money bear the responsibility.

The running into the ground of public services over the last decade is certainly a party political issue.

When they are talking about restoring school funding to 2010 levels, that's a clear sign there's an issue.

But you're talking about the standard of school buildings. And it's clear that a great deal of money has been spent on new buildings but there is still dissatisfaction with what is being produced. That's not a result of there being no money, that's poor design and the designers should be held responsible.