The learning curve since unstable RAAC was discovered in my school in August 2023 has been steep. The many challenges my amazing team and I have navigated have been diverse, challenging and frustrating. Not least among those is the DfE’s school rebuild programme (SRP).
There have been positive outcomes, though you wouldn’t wish this kind of CPD on anyone. Our once strong and able team is now a total powerhouse: problem solvers, morale boosters, masters at putting their heads down and powering through the difficulties our site brings.
So it was a morale boost for them when Ofsted visited last term and praised their efforts. They saw and valued the team’s focus on always ensuring the children’s learning opportunities are as immersive and engaging as possible in spite of the makeshift temporary site we inhabit.
But there’s no chance to settle. Our world is changing again under our feet. After a term in a wedding venue, and three terms in quickly-erected temporary classrooms, construction has just begun on our second set of temporary buildings.
This will give the construction team access to the old building, so that it can be demolished and a new one built, marking the official start of the DfE-led SRP. If all goes to plan, our fourth and final whole-school move will be in September 2027.
I was very excited to be informed in February last year that a RAAC policy change meant St Andrew’s would be rebuilt. Until then, extensive remedial work was still a possible outcome.
A year on, I can safely say that the process is carefully planned: so many meetings, so many discussions – advisers, architects and designers all contributing to policy-approved plans.
But while a shiny new net-zero building should be bringing excitement and positivity about the future, the process is in fact proving frustrating. Anyone who has been through it – apart, perhaps, from all those advisers – will understand my headache.
‘The computer says no’ to our nurture space
Rightly, the ‘quest for equity’ in all schools is high on the DfE agenda. To that end, the rebuild process begins with a computer programme that, fed a school’s PAN, produces a ‘schedule of accommodation’ – specifically the amount of square metre space to be allocated.
That sounds good and fair, but the reality is that the context and pupil demographics of the school are not taken into account by said computer.
When Ofsted came, they identified that we do a great job in personal development for our children. The opportunities, experiences and support that we put in place allow each of them to shine brightly.
But ‘the computer says no’ to a suitable space for our nurture provision, and we will be compromising on a library space in order to have the intervention spaces we use so effectively.
Nurture doesn’t just ‘pop up’ in the corner of a school hall and have the impact that our ‘home from home’ space does. The DfE and Ofsted want schools to be as inclusive as possible, so it seems utterly ridiculous for the (brand-new, DfE-paid for) building to be a barrier to that.
A policy change and a commitment to provide what schools need is the only way forward if we are to meet the expectations they set and deliver high and rising standards for our children.
Sadly for us, the allocated space in our new school will present substantial challenges to delivering our curriculum and to meeting the needs of our diverse and wonderful children.
The inability for the footprint to be expanded or deviated from in any way is a huge wasted opportunity.
I don’t believe there’s any cost difference in delivering what we need. This is a decision based on ‘spatial equity’ that, in reality, keeps building standards artificially low where they might better meet local need and national objectives.
Our local authority have been amazing in their support and in advocating for us in the higher-level meetings I do not attend. Knowing what spaces we need and valuing the amazing ‘life-defining’ impact our curriculum has on our children and families is key.
But when the final decisions are made by a poorly-tuned computer programme, the future feels less shiny and exciting, and more frustrating and compromising than I had anticipated.
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