Repairs cash bid `a race against time’

13th January 1995, 12:00am

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Repairs cash bid `a race against time’

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/repairs-cash-bid-race-against-time
A Bristol primary school is hoping its inspectors’ report will help to persuade Avon County Council to repair its crumbling walls and ceilings - before the council disappears in the re-organisation of local government.

The Office for Standards in Education report echoes the concerns of staff and parents about the building. “Only the efforts of the whole staff prevent this very uncongenial environment for teaching detracting from the quality of learning or standards achieved,” says the report.

Inspectors said Christ Church primary was “a good school with clearly stated aims that are successfully achieved in practice.” Under its key issues for action, the report says the governors should “sustain efforts to achieve radical improvements to the building”.

Earlier this year, Agriculture Minister William Waldegrave, the local MP, visited the school and wrote to Avon’s director of education Graham Badman: “Among your many present priorities, I genuinely believe that none can be higher on the building side than the fabric of Christ Church primary school in my constituency.”

Although Avon has given the 27-year-old school priority for the 1995-96 school year, its headteacher and governors fear that plans to disband Avon, replacing the county council with smaller authorities, will come into effect before the repairs take place - a situation faced by many schools in counties being reorganised.

“It is now a race against time”, said headteacher Tony Tween. “We understand we shall reach the top of the pile just as the authority is abolished.”

A spokesman for Bristol City Council, which will take over education next year, confirmed that its priorities could not yet be identified. The new authority would be elected in May, and its decisions could not be pre-empted, he said.

An Avon council spokesman said only money for re-roofing the school had been identified in the 1995-96 budget, and this was awaiting approval. Plans for other repairs would probably have to carry forward to the new authority. , he said Mr Tween said: “At its worst, teachers have had to step round buckets catching the rain dripping into classrooms from the roof. We were praised for our teaching - think what we could do with decent buildings.”

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