Southampton's school building plans plunged into uncertainty (From Daily Echo)
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Southampton's school building plans plunged into uncertainty
4:40pm Friday 19th March 2010 in
PLANS to flatten and rebuild five Southampton secondary schools as part of a £110m bid to raise the city’s poor educational standards have been plunged into uncertainty.
Chamberlayne College for the Arts, Upper Shirley High School, Sholing Technology College and St George’s Catholic School were all due to be completely rebuilt.
Meanwhile, Bitterne Park School was due to undergo a massive makeover with extensive refurbishment and new buildings.
However, the Conservative Party Schools’ spokesman Nick Gibb yesterday refused to guarantee funding for the government’s flagship Building Schools for the Future scheme.
He said projects that had not yet been finalised – like those in Southampton – would not be guaranteed to go ahead.
Instead he said that if a Conservative government was elected each school scheme would be decided on a case-bycase basis.
Communities Secretary and Labour MP John Denham described Mr Gibb’s announcement as a “devastating blow” for the city.
He said: “I worked very hard to get the £110m rebuilding programme brought forward so it could start this year but none of the schemes has reached financial close.
“There is now a huge question mark over every secondary school in the city.”
Becky Mepham, project manager for BSF in Southampton, said she was confident the five secondary schools’ transformation would go ahead, as funding has already been allocated through a Government spending review.
She said: “All projects that have closed have their funding and all others will be reviewed on a case by case basis. All our signs from the partnership for schools is that we remain significantly ahead of schedule and everything is remaining on course.”
Southampton City Council’s Conservative schools education chief Councillor Paul Holmes was unavailable for comment.
The city successfully won a government bid to become part of the Building Schools for the Future scheme two years ago.
During the last two years preparatory work has been undertaken and outline planning permission has already been obtained for Chamberlayne College, Upper Shirley High and Sholing Technology College.
Under the 15-year BSF scheme, every secondary school in England is due to be rebuilt or replaced by 2020, at a cost of £55 billion.
Comments(15)
Optimism rules OK
says...
4:04pm Fri 19 Mar 10
.
In all seriousness though, want to know where the problem is? make an unannounced visit to an Oasis academy! bibles, disorder, and broken promises.
Lone Ranger
says...
4:38pm Fri 19 Mar 10
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How about the deputy leader of the Council (whose name escapes for the minute)..he's usually got a lot to say for himself or doesn't he do bad news.
.
Anyway dont worry because the Tories wont be getting in anyway.
.
Waysider
says...
5:06pm Fri 19 Mar 10
soton1980
says...
6:55pm Fri 19 Mar 10
Condor Man
says...
8:38pm Fri 19 Mar 10
driverbelcher
says...
9:14pm Fri 19 Mar 10
soton1980 wrote:Sir,
It's not the buildings which are causing the poor results! We don't need some fancy, expensive buildings which will no doubt be designed by some overpriced architects. As 10-minute man quite rightly says, if they want to improve the standards, why not just headhunt for the best head teachers available.
I am a teacher in a highly successful secondary school. In order to do my job well I need a well maintained classroom (learning environment), decent, modern equipment and a supportive attitude amongst staff.
Simply "headhunting" staff isn't that easy, personally I wouldn't touch a so called failing school with a bargepole, no matter how much money I were offered, I wouldn't want the stress that went with it.
New buildings offer a change for a new start for schools and their incumbents.
Iw61
says...
9:32pm Fri 19 Mar 10
Condor Man wrote:Who is to blame then?
Chamberlayne is in definate need of replacement but the other schools only need patching up. Had schools not wasted their budgets on over-paying senior staff and appointing business managers and the like there would be more money in the pot for what really matters- good quality teaching.
If it is Browns fault say it.
If it isnt tell us who is to blame.
vj32
says...
10:01pm Fri 19 Mar 10
Condor Man
says...
11:05pm Fri 19 Mar 10
Iw61 wrote:Having worked in 2 Southampton schools the government has a lot to answer for. Far too much money was being spent bumping up the pay of senior staff but the main cause of the problems was that the kids poor behaviour - the blight of most schools.
Condor Man wrote: Chamberlayne is in definate need of replacement but the other schools only need patching up. Had schools not wasted their budgets on over-paying senior staff and appointing business managers and the like there would be more money in the pot for what really matters- good quality teaching.Who is to blame then? If it is Browns fault say it. If it isnt tell us who is to blame.
boredofsouthampton
says...
12:24am Sat 20 Mar 10
freefinker
says...
12:55am Sat 20 Mar 10
boredofsouthampton wrote:Do you mean "then" not "than"?
get decent teachers in not the wasters that are in schools at present than we might have half educated teenagers in southampton
.. and do you only aspire to "half educated teenagers"?
Waysider
says...
4:49am Sat 20 Mar 10
driverbelcher
says...
10:00am Sat 20 Mar 10
boredofsouthampton wrote:How are you qualified to comment on this? Please enlighten me.
get decent teachers in not the wasters that are in schools at present than we might have half educated teenagers in southampton
Molly2206
says...
1:46pm Sat 27 Mar 10
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10 Minute Man says...
3:54pm Fri 19 Mar 10
Perhaps they should head-hunt 50 top-of-the-class teachers from other parts of the country and dump the worst performing 50 teachers in Southampton.
Instead we're going end up throwing money after fancy new building schemes, probably with the dreaded millstone of PFI attached...