Fire destroys technology college in Leyland

[john]

the remnant of which was a plexiglass "bubble" through which you walked to get between buildings. The idea being, if one building caught, the bubble would melt, and the fire couldn't spread. I presume it's still there...

@michael2k6 can probably tell you more as he knows a lot about that place.....

[Dos_Box]

We saw the smoke plume form about 15 miles away on the M6 coming back from Mintfest in Kendal on Sunday. It was so large we though it was clouds!

[michael2k6]

I can confirm the plexi glass bubble isn't there any more, that area was rebulit in 2002 ish, the plexiglass is now a corridor, and ironically that area is down the corridor from the server room and in the middle of 4 ICT suites so if there were to be a fire, short of it being in the science block (which used to be there but is now compeltely separate, which is perhaps why they could remove the bubble), it would probably be there. The bubble wasn't really fit for purpose as it was about 2/3 the size of a normal corridor and connected the two main parts of the biggest building (built as a bridge between the first floor of each building). It meant that people used to get a little bit stuck in there, it was a bit of a bottle neck most of the time. Since then, the rest of the school has grown massively and it's still one of the biggest in the UK in terms of land and space, so that's only one very small section of a much bigger picture now.

[tom_newton]

Thanks - good to hear about the old place - must have changed a heck of a lot since I was a pupil in the early 90s. If you ever get a Smoothwall onsite I will have to come and do the install

[Garacesh]

I had a friend who was in attendance with the Salvation Army providing refreshments to Firefighters and managed to get a few photos here, it takes hold so quick looking at the images, never seen something develop quick for such a long time.

Ho-lee poop.. I knew it was on fire, but actually seeing it like that is something else..

BBC News - Braintree primary school devastated by fire

I'm seeing a trend here. Not good.

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BBC News - Braintree primary school devastated by fire

 

From various news reports I believe that may have been caused by building works. Still devastating none the less.

[michael2k6]

I'm no longer there. I was a pupil there 1999-2004 and then worked there as data manager until 2006. The school were then a client as I moved to Serco and I kept in touch with a lot of staff. I'm at Southfield Grange now in Bradford, so already use smoothwall as part of BLN. The Outwood Grange Academy is now the founding academy of Grange Academy group which has various academies within its 'federation', including, I believe, doncaster, blackpool and Leeds. Outwood Grange were the first school in the country (i believe) to take on an Academy as prt of the intiative of merging failing schools and reopenning the as academies, which started iwth David Young Community Academy in leeds, where I helped to implement some ICT and MIS for Ros, the head of the new build. outwood grange were one of the first to convert by choice with an 'outstanding' ofsted rating, headed by Michael Wilkins who is now the exec of the trust. Loads of random info for you there, sorry for thread hijacking!

[twin--turbo]

Often it is a phased approach to getting children back in, concentrating on exam / final years first.

 

Indeed,

 

After the flood subsided at out place on the Sunday, Myself and my Senior Tech met on site with the SLT ( the site manager had moved to a new job 2 weeks earlier and his senior had his own house to unflood.)

 

At 9am next morning there was a 6FM exam taking place.

 

At this point in time ~1PM on sunday we had no power, so no light, no heating, no nothing and no ETA for it comming back on.

 

We had switched off all the main breakers ( the big 300A ones one the main power incommers ) to prevent any major damage when/if the power came back on. The sub board were very badly marked btw.

 

Power came back on at 8PM, I went in in the very very pitch black at 6AM, restored only power to the main 1st floor hall area and the main boiler room. And very fortunatly I had a posative call to the Head to say we were good to run the exam.

 

Power had to remain off to the rest of the building whilst the waters still subsided.

 

I dispatched our second techi to machine mart to buy a petrol driven pump as our water heating boiler for another part of the building was under 10ft of water.

 

By mid day we had the LEA in, our main contractor, the insurance company on board.

 

My team did anything we could ( we pumped out the flooded bolier room, organised the plumber to clean and get the boiler running, liased with SLT and contractors, assisted staff. )

 

Portacabins were in place by the end of the week to create enough space.

 

 

It's amazing what a team of people can achive even in such bad situations.

 

Rob