New School Building




It was a great pleasure to spend tea-time of my day off yesterday at a service of blessing for a new school building. There were awards - Head Teachers gold certificates for the staff closely involved and for the contractors. I am the proud bearer of a Values in Practice pencil, given to Governors who had been involved in the project for putting our values into practice.

Bristol City Council are to be congratulated for being the first (and probably now the only) authority to get all their secondary schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme. I have to say that whatever political capital is being made about BSF, my experience of it has been very positive. We have a fantastic new building, on budget and on time, despite some real difficulties with the site. Skanska, the contractor are to be also to be thanked for making the building process as easy as possible.

This is, of course, not the end. The school move into the new building over half-term, and then the contractors begin the process of demolishing the old building. But it was am important mile stone to mark. The highlight for me was stepping over the threshold into the new school with a student, aged 12 or 13. 'It's beautiful' he said, rather awestruck. And so he should be!

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