ONLY THIRD WORLD SCHOOL IN BRITAIN

[inaiz]

CAN SEEM TO GET THE COUNCIL TO COMMIT TO REBUILD A DISASTEROUS SCHOOL,AN OLD SCHOOL WHICH IS DEPRIVED OF A SERIOUS FACELIFT....ANY IDEAS?

we are an Outstanding school and had a rebuild last year (as I understand it, the roof started to fall down). The building was over 100 years old, and sadly the council couldn't afford the restoration fees.

Not only does money have to be raised for the build, there are a number of other factors to take into account for a school rebuild.

RELOCATION - the entire school has to be moved to another site. The council has to seriously think about traffic flow to the new site, and how parents who would normally walk to the old site are going to travel to the temporary site. For us, the temporary site was next to a busy hospital, which involved MONTHS of negotiation wi the hospital chief exec ( a wnaker).

I'm so soryy to hear about your school. Do get the press involved, but work with your council as well. Relocation and rebuilding involves a huge amount of organisation

We should never give up home. We will try and try again until we get what we deserve!

Hope*

I'm struggling to follow this. Is there somewhere I can read about this school?

inaiz...I have heard about this on Central news, so you are obviously getting the message out there. Short of hounding the LEA, I'm not sure what you can do.

I't may be neccessary to have the whole school in "huts" untill the new build is complete.

Youtube clip

OK, haveing wathced the clip, I see the school cuold do with some improvements...but does the whole thing really need knocking down? If my house was in tehat state, I wouldn't knock it down, I would work on it.

How much cash does the PTA raise? It loos like all of their funds need to go towards some new carpets. And could the parents help oto buld a new play area for the nursery?

inaiz, can I just ask, if the building is so bad, why do people continue to send their children there.

I've read the Ofsted report, and while the school isn't failing, itt doesn't seem like one I would be busting a gut to send my child to.

Sometimes a school is so good that it overcomes bulding problems. For years we were in portacabins with poor faclities but we were over subscribed.

Now we have state of the art beautiful buildings we are unstoppable.

Don't know much about school building budgets, but isn't the Building Schools For The Future programme supposed to have been extended to primaries? Might be worth checking on the DCSF website.

The BSF is only for secondary schools, primary schools had the PCP (primary capital programme) which the LEA has already distributed and this school is not on their priority list.

We had a meeting with LEA director and were told that funding from govt was made available a few years back to reduce school sizes and due to the fact the school was full it did not qualify for funding.

After that it was for failling schools again the school is not failling so it does not qualify!!

So for being an oversubscribed school and not failling we have been penalised and neglected.

The LEA have said that if proposals are not accepted then funding will be given to another school!!!!

oh dear, you silly idiot. Kids in third world countries would be grateful for any education!

If the school really were that bad then surely it would be forced to close for health and safety reasons.

I went to a lovely primary school and was taught in a 'hut'. The heating once broke and we all spent a full day sat in class in coats. The school was needless to say not perfect and has since been rebuilt, but it never did my education any harm. It is the teachers that make the difference not the building.

so you have tried LEA, Media, MPs, etc.

If there really is no other option then you will have to raise the money yourselves.

Okay, it is not great, but the youtube video does not show it as bad as you would make out. (would it be very mean of me to say the that the grammatical errors on the YouTube video captions are worse?)
Certainly not third world standard - and what an odd way to describe a school.

Tbh, most of the work, judging from the video, could be done by the parents themselves? Our school frequently organises parent-clean-up-parties where a bunch of likeminded parents come together with teachers over a weekend or holiday and repaint the walls, clean up the playground, plant up the school garden etc. And it is a lovely way of being involved.
For instance in the YouTube clip there was a neglected playground - a few plants would do wonders (go begging at local nurseries/garden centres for plants esp if you then thank them in your school newsletter, great PR for them), and in the rest of the building a lick of paint, etc will all help. And the bit on the video captioned 'a lovely view' or something like that - why can't the parents clean it out, hire a skip or surely a parent has a van and take the rubbish up the dump?

I think less calling for help and more rolling up of sleeves is required

Sorry did say vid is basic from pics taken at the school!!!

The toilet facilities are inadequate, 2/3 toilets to 40 children, not sure what the ratios should be?!! In the nursery the toilet area is so tiny that the doors are mm's away from toilet, I know this is wrong because if the door is closed and a child is in trouble teachers can not get to the kids without hitting doors in to their legs!!!!

The comment about the view is of someone's backgarden, as the school is literally 2/3 ft from the back's of several houses. That is the view the children have of bars!!!!!

LB29 we have asked about the Health & safety checks and LEA are devising a list of action to resolve these issues!!!!

Loved the story of the good old days but in 2010 should this be happening??! would you send your children to a school like this??!!

god the grammar on yhe youtube is crap

People in glass houses Garry....

I'm sorry that in your opinion the school is in such a bad state and you feel as though you are all being ignored.

I have watched the You Tube video and wasn't hugely shocked to be honest. I have been and visited worse schools, some of which were located in buildings erected well over 100 years ago.

I work in a school that was built to accommodate 400 pupils back in the 1950's. The school has expanded and currently has 1000 pupils. We have over the years been granted plenty of port-a-cabin classrooms, some not in the greatest state of repair, but as and when the school started to look shabby and with no budget to do anything really grand we have turned to our parents and the PTA.

We have achieved very reasonable results, a lick of paint, anti fungal paint is very good for areas with mould, toilets are especially prone to this, your school is not alone here I'm afraid. Parents and the PTA donated benches, toys, flowers for the outside areas and many parents gave a lot of their spare time to the school to help improve it.

Sadly as for the prison style/bar fencing.... this is a result of our modern society we live in. We have these at our school too, with very sharp razor points at the top. The sole intention of keeping out would be thieves, vandals etc. Our entire site is fenced in like this, its a sorry state to be in, It does also help to deter anyone else getting onto the school site during the working day, After school tragedies such as that which occurred in Dunblane, Schools have to be extra vigilant.

I do find it slightly offensive to compare your school to a third world school. The education your children receive in the school is in no way comparable to that which is taught in third world countries. At present our school is raising money through collecting pennies to help build a school in an area of Africa where at present the school community meets for lessons under an Acacia tree!!
Please be realistic!

To make more of a stand and produce a more professional argument to those in charge of the pennies, I would suggest, changing your You Tube video by firstly checking all spellings and removing the sarcastic comments such as when the toilet is on show not having the best place to contract a urinary disease (or whatever the exact words are) displayed. Its joking and in bad taste and those in the higher office wont like it, make a proper video, showing, statistics, number of complaints, number of hours children are taught in the hall etc.

Best of luck and hopefully you will get somewhere and if not... rope in some of these parents, form a group and start cleaning/painting!

Agree wholeheartedly with Cowsgo.

If the bars are the problem - plant things against it. All schools are fenced in like this now.
In our school there are 8 toilets for boys adn 8 toilets for girls. The school has approx 325 pupils on the register. So your school has it good with 2 or 3 toilets for 40 pupils.

Our school also has peeling paint and there are damp patches on certain walls. We also have a periodically leaking roof.
As far as I am concerned that is nothing to be up in arms about. It is just the way it is. The school achieves well and pupils are happy there. And as I mentioned before, the school and PTA pull together to fund paint, plants, play equipment and all the other things needed to brighten the place up.

So, look again at your campaign video. Check for grammar and spelling, improve the use of language.
But perhaps you are targettign the wrong audience. If teh council and LEA etc have decided the school is adequate then start targetting parents. Does the school have a PTA? If yes - get fundraising for plants, paint, playequipment. If no - set one up and get fundraising for plants, paint playequipment.

Get active yourselves - it is your school, for your children. Make it better!

I agree that there is a lot that the parents can do. Especially outside.

If you can get the LEA to provide new flooring, and buy the paint, the parents can come together and do the work.

We do this both for our primary school and my sons preschool. Every spring we paint, repair play equipment tidy and clean the playgrounds, etc. We also spring clean.

We have a system where every child (the parents of the child course) is required to do 12 hours of voluntary work annually. This can be cleaning, painting, carpentry, baking for special occasions, etc. At the end of the year, we are invoiced £25 for every hour we have NOT worked. So, if I only did 2 hours of voluntary work, I would be billed £250. It is great, because the parents really get to know eachother, we get a really good environment for our children, and we have learnt to take pride in the school!

a rebuilt for a school that excels---took a long time......,BUT this school takes the cake and the cherry on the top!
how much longer ,another 30 years?

I am sure if you were opening a restuarant / office you would need to have certain basic standards in place, so why do schools which are the foundation for our children's life experiences not meeting up to basic standards in cases like ours!!!!

Everyone seems to be accepting, why ??

Every policy I have read states that environment plays a major factor in the development of a child's aspirations, so what are run down, falling down and overcrowded schools saying to our children!!!!

Then everyone wonders why the children are disaffected and have no respect for anything.

Schools need to meet standards if the govt can afford to bail out the banks, then they should be able to rebuild schools to accomodate the tax payers of the future!!!

Stop pushing the blame onto the authorities. My children are in a school of the same standard as yours building wise. They are NOT disaffected or disillusioned. Those are feelings they pick up from their parents, so the more you moan about the building, they more they will feel down about it. If the parents are enthusiastic about the school and pull their sleeves up and actually DO something then the children will also care about their environment and be happy there.

I am sorry, but you come across as money grabbing and lazy. All this 'it is our right' and 'the council/LEA should' blah blah blah.

Get your backsides into gear, grab paint, plants etc and DO SOMETHING!

Other parents at other schools can and have done just that. Why can't you?

Also - sorry, had to grab a coffee hence the break - I just want to say I do know why you want better facilities. I understand. In an ideal world we all would like perfect schools with a nice building etc.
The sad fact is, that unless you go private, you are not very likely to find this. Yes there are state schools out there of a nicer standard to your dc's school (and my dc's school too for that matter - tumbledown victorian building anyone?) but the real fact is that it is adequate. You may not like it, but it is adequate.

There is only a limited pot of money in the council / gov budgets.
If your local council rebuilt your school at a huge cost that money would either have to come from increased taxes or taken from money to be spent on roads/hospitals/care for the elderly or anything else along those lines.
You say that if the gov have the money to bail out banks they should have money to spend on schools. Well yes, in an ideal world they would. And our hospitals would be safe and clean and sparkling, the police force would have enough officers to stamp out all crime and none of our roads would have potholes.
Sadly, the gov has the prioritise. You and I may not like how they prioritise, but they do and we ahve to live with it.

I am all for campaigning for a good cause. But in this instance I honestly feel your school parents could help themselves. Perhaps this is what your LEA wants to see too? I know that once our school organised a gardening working party suddenly garden centres were donating trees/shrubs and the ocal press came out to do an article. And then suddenly we received some funding and offer of labour to build a greenhouse (a cool wood and plastic bottle eco one) from a local company and now we have a veggie patch too!
Start by rallying parents. Do any of them work for companies which could donate materials / time? Organise a working party, start working on the school. And I am willing to bet it wills nowball. And you may not get help from the government but I am sure local businesses would love to get involved. Great PR you see!

Going for a protest this coming week -gate crashing the coucil`s meetingwanna come?
at coventry council.......wanna help?....need all the support!

Hippi - a point beautifully made
I agree, my kids school was built in 1900s (so older than 59years which to be honest isnt that old)

Lots of schools in britain have tumbledown building with overcrowded classrooms and not enough toilets - that doesnt make them third world schools

Lots of schools have 'huts' more usually known as portacabins. Obviously they are not ideal but better than an overcrowded classroom surely

I suspect that gatecrashing the council's meeting isnt the best way to go but its one way of making your point I guess!