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School repairs - an accident waiting to happen?

school repairs - an accident waiting to happen?

12 April 2013

The thorny issue of capital funding for schools has raised its head again as it is claimed that the coalition’s capital allocation for schools was nowhere sufficient to meet estimated repair costs in excess of £3.5 billion. The DfE have responded to the claims as nonsense and have pointed to a capital plan of some £16 billion to support school projects of which £6 billion is for maintenance issues. Whilst the plan may be in place, it appears from reports that the building projects are not progressing as expected due to a lack of private funding.

Whilst the issue is used as the current political football, the state of school buildings may have practical issues for schools in terms of health and safety obligations, increasing sums required for repairs, potential claims for accidents and, above all, an adverse impact of the education being provided for pupils if funding and resources are restricted due to poorly maintained buildings.

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Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has confirmed that head teachers who take “the decision to either suspend or expel a pupil because they need to do it in order to be able to enforce proper and full discipline in their school, and making sure that they're protecting the whole interests of the school, will always have my backing".

Welcome news for sixth form colleges looking to academise

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In our previous blog we updated you on the new requirements to teach relationships, health and sex education (elements of which are phase specific) which will become mandatory in September 2020.

View all blogs

Richard Freeth

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