[senco-forum] BSF

It sounds splendid, doesn't it?  Straight swop of outdated, crumbling, energy guzzling 1960s/70s buildings for hi-tech up to the minute 'modern' buildings (which, sure as eggs are eggs, will be as much villified as the buildings they replace in 30 years time).  

Sadly, it just ain't that simple.

There's PFI for a start, which takes effective control of the splendid shiny new buildings away from the occupier.  There's the commercial involvement of massive companies in the provision of services (and when did that ever turn out to be a good thing?)

In the case of our school. when BSF eventually happens, we have 2 schools amalgamating, with huge implications for staffing, school ethos, management structures etc, etc.

Objectors to BSF aren't necessarily Luddites; they might well be the only ones who can see that perhaps the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes...

Maggie

Garner Philip <Philip.Garner at northampton.Ac.Uk> wrote: I'm absolutely unsure whether your response is tongue-in-cheek or otherwise. It does, however, present as a somewhat patronising rersponse regarding a real issue which has been genuinely raised.

Best wishes

Philip Garner

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk on behalf of kngbrndn at aol.com
Sent: Sun 1/13/2008 1:01 AM
To: hepburnbrian at hotmail.com; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [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).

?

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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