[senco-forum] BSF

Hi Brian -- Living?near your region --?I've picked?up the?news on TV that highlighted the Potteries area as?having a large spend to use from the 'Building Schools for the Future' programme -- and so are proposing to close/re-furb a large number of dilapidated schools (particularly secondary) and build brand new?ones (or virtually rebuild on existing sites).

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And even I?have been surprised at the rather bizarre local outcry against the proposals -- instead of delight at the prospect of millions of pounds being spent on?new school buildings. It does seem that whenever old schools are proposed for closure / merger that there is an immediate campaign to save?them -- whatever?the merits or otherwise of saving them.

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But once the fabric has been bulldozed -- the anger soon dies down -- and oldies like us get on with creating old school renuinions. They are much more enjoyably nostalgic when the actual building has gone. So don't be over-sensitive about your local issues -- the fuss will soon die down once your area has got loads of brand spanking new school buildings.

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People of the 5? towns (I'm never sure about the number) will soon mellow to the notion of new schools,?with new fangled facilities such as indoor flushing toilets, science labs, computer rooms, large windows that one can look out of, electricity.

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You'll be amazed at the transformation that will be wrought when your old and ugly Victorian schools are swept away. And they'll probably save one particularly old and ugly one to use as a teachers development centre -- with a little set of pokey offices for?your SEN Services (renamed "Children and Young Persons Inclusion Initiative and Strategic Assessment? for Resource?Delegation of?Additional Educational?Needs Services").??

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The next Potteries outcry will be against the razing of those back-to-back terraces and the making of the knocker-up man and the night-soil visitors redundant. Potteries Councils have a huge challenge bringing the land of?Wedgwood et al into the 20th century.

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Problem is the rest of us are?already acclimatising to the 21st.??

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Methinks that?having upset those fine folk in the S/W -- now I'll have all of?North Staffordshire on my back!!

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Best Wishes for the New Year to you. Brendan King

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