Schools funding will make buildings safe and warm

A headteacher says funding to improve her school will help to stop "the river running down the stairs" in the winter when they have "severe storms".

Denmark Road High School in Gloucester is to receive nearly £1.5m to make improvements to the school's listed building, which is more than 115 years old.

It is one of 14 schools in Gloucestershire to secure funding from the government's School Rebuilding Programme.

Claire Giblin said the money would help secure the school's future: "It's a wonderful building. It takes a lot of looking after and needs around quarter of a million pounds every year, which we're not able to spend on it, so the funding is vital."

The money will be used to replace old windows and doors at the school.

Business and operations manager Rachel Harries said waiting to find out if they had been successful had been "totally nerve-wracking" but finding out was "a huge source of excitement".

Bromsberrow St Mary's C of E primary school will use its funding to replace an old oil-fire boiler which has been " significantly declining".

" I spend most of my holidays in school trying to fix it", said headteacher Laura Hankins.

"It's got to a point where it's no longer viable. We've had to shut the school and it's had an impact on children and staff, it's becoming a real liability," she added.

"We're going to have a new boiler fitted which will be more energy efficient and ensure we can stay open".

Hankins is also head of Redmarley C of E primary which has received funding to improve school security.

"We've got an entrance to school that's not secure enough and our fencing all around the site is falling to pieces with gaps and holes, it's left our site incredibly vulnerable.

"We have children now within school with lots of addition needs and we need to keep our children safe".

Farmors school in Fairford has received around £1.1m after unsuccessfully applying for funding for the last five years.

Headteacher Mark Surowiec said the money would help to "heat the school properly".

"The boiler catastrophically failed a couple of years ago. The boiler was fixed but the actual heating distribution system, getting heat around the school keeping our students warm, keeping our staff warm, is the bit we're lacking at the moment," he explained.

"In previous winters the senior team have been going around the school putting electric heaters in classroom on the really cold days from seven in the morning, just to get them warm enough.

"Like many schools, some of the buildings here are that much older so they're not so well insulated. There is much more investment needed, so we hope this sort of funding will continue to come our way".

Schools Minister, Josh MacAlister said "Opportunity for our children starts with a great education, and children can only learn well in buildings that are safe, warm and fit for purpose – not classrooms disrupted by leaking roofs, failing boilers and declining buildings.

"This funding will help schools tackle urgent issues before they become bigger and more costly problems."

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