£418.3m For Six New BSF Projects As Once-In-A-Generation Project Continues....

[DaveP]

The rest of each area's schools will be rebuilt or refurbished with the vast majority of local authorities due to finish their full BSF programmes by 2020 and the remaining projects in the closing stages.

Can this be right? I though that BSF was struggling.

Local Authority Indicative Amount Initial Schools to Benefit from Investment

Buckinghamshire
£80m (£73.5m + £7.3m for ICT)
- Chesham Park Community College

- Burnham Upper

- Mandeville School (Aylesbury)

- The Grange Aylesbury

- Buckingham Upper School

- Furze Down (SEN) (Winslow)

Cornwall
£69m (£62.6m + £6.5m for ICT)
- Camborne Science & Community College

- Humphry Davy School (Penzance)

- Poltair School and Enterprise College (St Austell)

- Redruth School

- Pool Business & Enterprise College (Redruth)

- Curnow SEN School

Gateshead (repeat)
£80m (£71.6m + £8.6m for ICT)
- Whickham School

- Ryton School

- St. Thomas More School (Gateshead)

- Joseph Swan School (Gateshead)


Lincolnshire
£70m (£62.1m + £7.6m for ICT)
- John Spendluffe Technology College (Alford)

- The George Farmer Technology College (Holbeach)

- Boston Haven High

- Boston Grammar & Boston High

- Spalding Gleed Boys & Spalding Gleed Girls


Oxfordshire
£62m (£56.3 + £6.0m for ICT)
- Banbury School

- Larkmead School (Abingdon)

- Cheney School (Oxford)

- Iffley Mead (Oxford)

Sutton
£56m (£51.6 + £4.6m ICT)
- Carshalton Boys Sports College

- Carshalton High School for Girls

- Wandle Valley School (SEN)

- Hospital and Tuition Service (PRU) (Wandle Valley)

- The Limes College (PRU) (Sutton)

With so many schools listed above surely some are 'Edugeek establishments?'

What is your perspective?

Link: DCSF News : Department for Children, Schools and Families

[localzuk]

BSF is still steaming ahead as far as I know. Just slower than was originally planned...

Not even been brought up down here yet. Only Bridgewater got something (they were a pathfinder area IIRC). The rest of Somerset is likely somewhere near the bottom of the list - regardless of the fact that West Somerset is one of the most economically deprived areas in the country.

Edit: Just found a site for Somerset BSF that didn't exist that long ago. Seems we're at the bottom end of the bottom end of the list. Namely, 2018/2020 before this area gets hit... I wonder if I'll still be in education IT then?

[glennda]

Can this be right? I though that BSF was struggling.



With so many schools listed above surely some are 'Edugeek establishments?'

What is your perspective?

Link: DCSF News : Department for Children, Schools and Families

how much of the ICT money will be spent on rubbish which will prove totally pointless when actually implemented in the classroom? I just think most of the ICT money will end up in the pockets of companies such as RM/Viglen and most of the schools will only see marginal improvements in what they actually see and get to use.

Toby

[mb2k01]

Hadn't heard, but several near me! (The way it is in Cornwall!)
I am not one, but having a "traditional" new build outside of BSF / PFI etc.

Exciting times ahead.

[torledo]

Can this be right? I though that BSF was struggling.

Or maybe BSF [under it's current guise] struggles to get going under a new administration, and now is the time to get funds committed where possible for one of the current adminstrations flagship education projects before the forthcoming election ?

Good for the economic recovery, all those forward order books being filled with BSF work, And the banks must be confident enough to lend for such projects, well you'd have thought they'd be falling over themselves given all the GOVT. supports that exist for lending for such important not-to-be-derailed projects.

full steam ahead ?

[DaveP]

What is most surprising to me about this is that 2020 seems rather optimistic as BSF has not even touched our area yet.

By the time it does roll over us [if it ever does] I will be of an age that will mean I will have few options if I don't like the TUPE offer.

[torledo]

What is most surprising to me about this is that 2020 seems rather optimistic as BSF has not even touched our area yet.

By the time it does roll over us [if it ever does] I will be of an age that will mean I will have few options if I don't like the TUPE offer.

nah, what is most surprising is you see yourself still working in a school [the same school ?]
10 years from now.

[Jose]

I work at Wallington Girls in the london borough of sutton,
I think that article is mostly bulls**t, I was told by a family friend
that Sutton had been turned down in its latest bid, unless this is a compromise I think its a carefully worded article to make BSF look more progressive than it is

[IanT]

I work at Wallington Girls in the london borough of sutton,
I think that article is mostly bulls**t, I was told by a family friend
that Sutton had been turned down in its latest bid, unless this is a compromise I think its a carefully worded article to make BSF look more progressive than it is

I live in wallington and I heard that Wallington Girls isnt going BSF

regards to Carshalton High School for Girls, I was gonna apply for there Dutpy Network Manager role last year...........lucky I didnt if there going down the BSF route.

[dezt]

Lancashire Wave 4 has had £100 million to be shared amongst 9 schools, I only know this as our school is one of them, this is going to be starting September 2011. I got told that the head has no control over what happens to the ICT, if they accept the money to be spent on the school then ICT has to be out-sourced through the ICT contractor that won the contract.

[Dos_Box]

Chances are it's smoke and mirrors. The money was most likely allocated a long time ago and announcements like this are in the 'Look at us, we're doing something' vein to keep the govt PR machine rolling.

[theeldergeek]

nah, what is most surprising is you see yourself still working in a school [the same school ?]
10 years from now.

What's wrong with that? I hope to be working where I am in 20 years time and then some. I'm too long in the tooth, have done it, been there, got the tee-shirt and am bored of career ladders. I've travelled the world in my work, dealt with some of the nicest people and the biggest idiots. I'm happy in my job, why on earth would I want to change something I actually enjoy doing?

[tech_guy]

Any news on north Warwickshire - I thought that they were chasing BSF money and the decision was to be announced soon?

[torledo]

What's wrong with that? I hope to be working where I am in 20 years time and then some. I'm too long in the tooth, have done it, been there, got the tee-shirt and am bored of career ladders. I've travelled the world in my work, dealt with some of the nicest people and the biggest idiots. I'm happy in my job, why on earth would I want to change something I actually enjoy doing?

it was more the assumptions being made about where one might be 10 years from now. It's an awfully long time, a lot can happen....a person's personal circumstances can change dramatically, not to mention the situation as far as ICT in schools. And ICT staffing in schools.

Yes, there's maybe an element of the career ladder, but it's not exclusively that. I enjoyed some of the stuff i was doing 10 years ago, but then i moved on and enjoyed doing something else....not a big deal.

[broc]

If the BSF juggernaut runs its course then almost everyone who works in school ICT will be affected, either directly because of TUPE or because the job roles & opportunities will change, for the better for some, and for the worse for others.

I have worked in IT all my life (38 years & counting) and have seen huge changes, the one thing I am certain about is that it will continue to change. I could not have imagined doing many of the jobs I have done when I first started writing programs in Fortran.....

Quite honestly I feel at times that school network managers (myself included) are a bit like dinosaurs looking up into the sky at an asteroid called BSF on a collision course with the earth......