Crumbling schools plagued by leaks and cold, BBC finds

[LeMarchand]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68021766

 

Obviously we need to stay away from heading into politics but I think we can all agree that, no matter who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs, something needs to be done.

[Brax]

We've just got rid of our "Sheds", 50 years or so is a long time for a "temporary building".

[jthompson]

I tend to notice this kind of stuff a lot more out of term time, when the rooms and corridors are empty. You really begin to notice how tired everything is looking.

[3s-gtech]

We had 'sheds'. We managed to timetable out of them one year, then rang our LEA who gratefully pounced on them to use elsewhere.

 

One of the best things we ever did. I suspect the primary they went to has shut since (hopefully not because of unheatable portable classrooms!)

[mthomas08]

"temporary building".

 

Love the words temp building.

 

I'm seriously getting old and the temp buildings have been around in different schools for many... many ............ many years.

 

I will say this though... my Primary school had a temp building and it got replaced in recent years. YAY

Only took a fire.. completely burned down... nothing left.... for it to be replaced.

[john]

The temp classroom thing was my entire education... my primary school in late 80s/early 90s the infants was a temp classroom that was for 5 years.... it took them till 2010s to get rid and have a proper building built! My middle school had 3 moving upto 5 temp classrooms.... then secondary had a couple that were just awful and i did see them destroyed and 8 room block built so did get the benefit from that (although it was far too hot in summer so the "sheds" were better for being cold and drafy all year haha

 

Its awful things are such a state but its not a new thing we just seem to have woken up to the problem?!

[Syman_a]

I remember being "told off" by my LA for referring to our "demountable units" as temporary units. This was when i started out some 30 odd years ago, they are still in one of the schools i covered.

[PotNoodleTech]

My office is a portacabin from circa 1960. We've kept it in good repair, no leaks etc, but it it costs a fortune to heat etc. Got 4 portacabins in total - 3 of them are electrically heated. *sobs*

[E_G_R2]

Its not just older schools either

This article is about a nice PFI recent build

 

https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/139/main-news/154836/head-slams-%E2%80%98unacceptable%E2%80%99-failings-plaguing-school-after-pupils-arrive-to-find-heating-broken-again

[Disease]

How much of this is poor school management, I am in a state school which is well run and our Head invests in the buildings, we have repairs carried out swiftly and we have a rolling room decoration plan. We are not a new build either, our main building is from the 60's, we have 2 new buildings (5 years old) but paid for out of our budget. How many of these schools are in the state they are because the school SLT fail to invest properly in the maintenance of the buildings because they are top heavy on staff or waste money in other areas? Edited January 24, 2024 by Disease

[E_G_R2]

How much of this is poor school management, I am in a state school which is well run and our Head invests in the buildings, we have repairs carried out swiftly and we have a rolling room decoration plan. We are not a new build either, our main building is from the 60's, we have 2 new buildings (5 years old) but paid for out of our budget. How many of these schools are in the state they are because the school SLT fail to invest properly in the maintenance of the buildings because they are top heavy on staff or waste money in other areas?

 

Think this hits the nail on the head.

 

I worked at a school where the BM and HT had a rolling improvement plan, decorating, windows replaced, fixing roofs etc.. It had a sister school that didn't. Remember visiting and being aghast at the state of the windows and number of leaks that happened.

[Rob_D]

For LA maintained schools, aren't any major building works tendered and managed by county? (that was the impression I go from talking to the SBM)

Sure we have a program of decorating and minor internal works which keeps the school looking good. But when it comes down to the big things, like replacing the 50YO heating system, or re-roofing one of the buildings, or getting the old 50s/60s era sheet-rock replaced with new cladding/insulation, that all seems to be largely outside of the school's control.

[Dos_Box]

How much of this is poor school management, I am in a state school which is well run and our Head invests in the buildings, we have repairs carried out swiftly and we have a rolling room decoration plan. We are not a new build either, our main building is from the 60's, we have 2 new buildings (5 years old) but paid for out of our budget. How many of these schools are in the state they are because the school SLT fail to invest properly in the maintenance of the buildings because they are top heavy on staff or waste money in other areas?

 

You may have hit on something there. With 80%+ of English high schools now in academy groups (there are 1170 of these now!), I wonder if they are not paying attention to outlying details, especially once they are cut off from LEA control and all of the infrastructure and support they offer.

[Chris_Cook]

For LA maintained schools, aren't any major building works tendered and managed by county? (that was the impression I go from talking to the SBM)

Sure we have a program of decorating and minor internal works which keeps the school looking good. But when it comes down to the big things, like replacing the 50YO heating system, or re-roofing one of the buildings, or getting the old 50s/60s era sheet-rock replaced with new cladding/insulation, that all seems to be largely outside of the school's control.

 

There's probably still a need to communicate issues with the buildings clearly to the LA or Trust. If they do a survey in the summer then they might not see the heating issues in the winter. That and having long term strategies in place. How long to you want to keep throwing money at buildings that really should be replaced?

 

There are also varying levels of technical/maintenance debt between schools where things might not have been taken care of by previous staff/management.

[Disease]

For LA maintained schools, aren't any major building works tendered and managed by county? (that was the impression I go from talking to the SBM)

Sure we have a program of decorating and minor internal works which keeps the school looking good. But when it comes down to the big things, like replacing the 50YO heating system, or re-roofing one of the buildings, or getting the old 50s/60s era sheet-rock replaced with new cladding/insulation, that all seems to be largely outside of the school's control.

 

Actually for full disclosure we are a VA school, but that makes it slightly harder for us as we have to raise 10% of the cost for any building works by external means, so if we are spending £1million on a building using state funds we have to get £100k externally.

 

Our Head and governors pay close attention to staffing levels so we are not over staffed and not under staffed, I have seen some schools where they are bloated with Teaching staff and TA's, schools never seem to be bloated with Support Staff though.

[southhamster]

I think it also makes a huge difference if you have a site manager who knows their onions and can stand their ground. My last school before retirement (standalone academy), had a qualified H&S building site manager who was unpopular sometimes but got all the unglamorous stuff that needed to be done (reroofing, cladding, drains etc), and was well able to make contractors do what they should as they couldn't pull the wool over his eyes. Sadly, seen plenty of other schools that didn't have anyone except for contract cleaners. I was working in one temporary classroom and warned not to lean on the wall as it was loose - you could see the gap in the corner of the building! One teacher confessed they were scared of being in there in a high wind.

[mikes]

Mind you a new school might not be great too. We had a new school built in 2019 which was about half the size of the old one, but we still kept the same number of pupils if not more so. So they are crammed in like sardines. And the new LEA managed eco-heating is so bad, or often just not working at all, a lot of staff resort to electric space heaters. I went from a decent office with natural light, to being inside basically a storage cupboard with a tiny slit window facing into the gym, like something you'd see in ADX Florence Supermax. And they had the cheek to say "isn't this office much better" because I was located closer to the main office staff? that's a downgrade not an upgrade to me.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

In my Trust, we have a mix bag of schools built in the 60’s and BSF era builds. We also have a couple of PFI to boot. The challenges are different in each of the schools, but the bottom line is there just isn’t enough money to go around. The 60’s buildings are incredibly difficult to do anything with; asbestos everywhere. We had to spend £10k on specialist surveys prior to being able to go ahead with CTC upgrades. The newer buildings whilst asbestos free are full of problems - the fancy heating systems installed don’t work anymore. In our PFI schools, whilst we aren’t responsible for building repairs, the PFI company are only concerned with the bottom line so do as little as possible to the building on the cheap. The problems are only getting worse as the buildings approach 10+ years old, and trying to get anything done via the Council (who ultimately hold the contract for PFI) is an absolute nightmare. The PFI know this and hide behind the huge legal fees that would be involved if we wanted to hold them to account. The incredibly stupid fees they charge us impact how much work can be done in the other schools in the Trust; we were charged £1,600 for fitting two new C-Touches to the wall…. And this was just the labour and ‘making good charges’!!

[DrBeaker]

In my Trust, we have a mix bag of schools built in the 60’s and BSF era builds. We also have a couple of PFI to boot. The challenges are different in each of the schools, but the bottom line is there just isn’t enough money to go around. The 60’s buildings are incredibly difficult to do anything with; asbestos everywhere. We had to spend £10k on specialist surveys prior to being able to go ahead with CTC upgrades. The newer buildings whilst asbestos free are full of problems - the fancy heating systems installed don’t work anymore. In our PFI schools, whilst we aren’t responsible for building repairs, the PFI company are only concerned with the bottom line so do as little as possible to the building on the cheap. The problems are only getting worse as the buildings approach 10+ years old, and trying to get anything done via the Council (who ultimately hold the contract for PFI) is an absolute nightmare. The PFI know this and hide behind the huge legal fees that would be involved if we wanted to hold them to account. The incredibly stupid fees they charge us impact how much work can be done in the other schools in the Trust; we were charged £1,600 for fitting two new C-Touches to the wall…. And this was just the labour and ‘making good charges’!!

 

 

Let's be honest here...

 

1) There IS money but it is NOT being spent on building or IT infrastructure, but on top-heavy management structures within academies up and down the country.

 

e.g. I know exactly what I do all day, every day. I couldn't tell you what some of the SLT do all day long however yet they cost more.

 

2) Then there's the issue of having competent site staff who actually know what they're doing.

[mikeprice]

Couple of little stories

 

 

sorry

 

 

Firstly - site managers

Big secondary school I taught in for many years had one of the SMT as SIte Manager - quite a good Humanites teacher - did a good job on stats then got given the Site Manager job as well

 

as usual

 

after a while they got - against the wishes of the LEA - a proper Site Manager with experience of ding the job properly on proper building sites

AKA - no a teacher

 

shortly after he started a disabled guy in a wheelchair was due to start in Year 7

so lots of changes were needed

wheelchair access to all building (ground floor only - timetable had to fix the rest), wheelchair friendly doors on all accessible places - and all that

quite a lot of work needed over summer

 

LEA contracted it all and got it sorted out with one of their normal contractors

 

on our first INSET day of 2 there was apparently chaos building wise

the builders had finished and brought him the forms to sign it off

 

but he didn;t - he insisted on a proper site inspection instead

 

and this wasn;t a teacher they were walking around with - it was an experienced builder and Site Manager - he knew how it was supposed to be done

 

he procuded a snag list as long as your arm and refused to sign the job off

 

the builders insisted that he HAD to sign it off and the snags would be sorted soon

 

he refused - pointing out that several were serious and the contract said

 

whooo - problem - HE HAD HAD THE DAMN CHEEK TO READ THE CONTRACT!!!

 

and - he noticed that - as it was time limited due to the disabled access thingy and start-of-term thingy - someone (i.e. him) had snuk a penalty clause into the thing

which he pointed out

 

shows what an experienced Site Manager can do!!

 

 

 

 

Second little story

 

last school I worked in had a flat roof mostly - always leaked - especially the computer room!!!!

roofers came in several times a year and charged the school - as mainteneance was a school responsibility - building works above that was the LEA's problem

 

went on for years - fix it - goes wrong - fix it - it goes wrong

several times every year

no builder would guarantee anything because they were basically patching over work out and rotting structure

 

cost the school a fortune

 

 

after I left the school had an inspection and it was bad - got forced into an academy - which was to be expected

 

teh academy checked around and applied to the LEA for a grant to re-do the whole roof - which the LEA had been refusing to do for decades

Apparently it was a grant that teh LEA were not allowed to refuse

 

so now the whole school has a brand new proper sloping tile roof

paid for by the LEA

 

end stories

[DrBeaker]

@mikeprice true

 

There's good and bad, competent and incompetent, overpaid and underpaid in all strands of school staff to be fair.

 

Leads into the discussion of devaluing of IT jobs again though when IT professionalism is seemingly treated in less regards than site staff.

 

I've seen it myself however when building and site issues have had botched repairs or repairs ignored yet an increase in management staff.

 

Not fixing the issues leads to the 'broken window' theory and lower staff morale and issues with students learning and behaviour in a poor environment.

[Disease]

Let's be honest here...

 

1) There IS money but it is NOT being spent on building or IT infrastructure, but on top-heavy management structures within academies up and down the country.

 

e.g. I know exactly what I do all day, every day. I couldn't tell you what some of the SLT do all day long however yet they cost more.

 

2) Then there's the issue of having competent site staff who actually know what they're doing.

 

Exactly this, Our school was built in the 60's but over the last 15 years we have allocated money to asbestos removal so we have next to none left now. If you have a decent team of professional staff, who challenge safety and contractors and management then you find you don't have half the problems these other school have. As I said in my initial post it's down to poor management.

[mikeprice]

There is certainly an attitude that something that is already "broken" can be vandalised further - and that is OK

 

We used to have a problem outside my teachering room - the mortar around the bricks was crumbling in one area - the kids used to gather there and over time they worried away at it so that the brocks started falling out

There was also a patch of crumbing plaster in my HOD's room which got worried away at

In both cases - once it was fixed the kids left it alone

 

When I was training some of the people on my course were at a school in Wrexham

At the time there were several Secondary school in the town and one was due to close soon (ish) and this had been know for a few years - hence no money was spent on mainteneance so thing started falling apart

 

the kids basically demolished bits of the school around themselves and anything even slightly dodgy was just ripped apart unless it was being watched all day

 

 

Same applies to computer (see I do get back on topic!) - if a laptop is pristine then it will generally stay that way

once a letter dissappears from the keyboard then it soon gets more missing keys

but the laptops on either side of it normally stay just fine

 

 

at my last school we had some old laptops that were basically just scruffy - old stickers and generally "stuff" all over them

so they just got worse

 

Until I took them out and scrubbed them with alcohol so they looked new

I told the kids they were new ones and changed the default browser and windows background and they were thrilled with them!

 

 

people are weird

[jthompson]

Until I took them out and scrubbed them with alcohol so they looked new

I told the kids they were new ones and changed the default browser and windows background and they were thrilled with them!

 

I love this!

 

One thing I've noticed over the many years I've been working in schools is that the 'broken window' effect is never more noticeable than with key caps. Another thing I've noticed is that some children will draw on anything, whereas some other children will only draw on things that have already been drawn on.

[PotNoodleTech]

I do agree it has a lot to do with how the school is run we've always spent whatever money is needed on fixing roofs etc but other schools down the road have left things to completely rot and then ended up getting new buildings/extensions/whole new schools eventually.

 

We're stuck with the 1960s school as it's not bad enough to demolish so are we shooting ourselves (and our pupils) in the foot by trying to keep everything maintained should we just give up and wait for the LEA to get involved?

 

It's a sad state of affairs when strategically, long term, we're better off doing a really bad job rather than a really good one :/