The education system in Hull has taken more than its fair share of knocks over the years. In all fairness to the teachers, Hull is a city where education is regarded as unimportant. Until parents realise their children’s future lies with a good education, very little will change. Today though one school is celebrating. St Mary’s School has received an outstanding OFSTED report and it is the first school in the city to ever receive such a commendation. Well done to the pupils and staff who have worked very hard to achieve this.
Unfortunately, elsewhere in the city our money is being wasted through the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Seven years ago, a new school opened on Beverley Road, called Endeavour High School. It was an amalgamation of William Gee and Amy Johnson Schools. It was beset with problems as soon as it opened its doors. Hull City Council wants to close this school and build a new academy in the west of the city. The academy’s new home could be the Boulevard, the former home of Hull FC Rugby League Club. The council states Endeavour was built in the wrong location! So what? Why should taxpayers have to shell out millions of pounds, especially with the current cuts starting to bite, because Hull City Council wants to relocate after less than 10 years? The last government approved the relocation, and it looks like nothing is going to change. Once a site can be found, building work will take place. All of this is on top of the costs of acquiring land to build the new Northern Academy to replace Sir Henry Cooper School. Whilst none of us want our children to be educated in falling down schools, surely it is what goes on in the classroom that matters.
Schools in the area have been told there is no extra money available to them. So why is it Michael Gove thinks is it appropriate to spend money on a new academy, when the school it is replacing has buildings less than 10 years old?
This nonsense is complete waste of money and I hope the government has a rethink and decides to shelve this ridiculous plan.
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Hull City Council/BSF show no remorse in wasting taxpayers money. Endeavour High should not be relocated just at their whim and fancy. Hull CC have recently wasted £1,230,000 of taxpayers money on buying the Pavilion Office Park to make way for the Northern Academy. They will be wasting millions more to demolish this fairly new building to accommodate a car park. They have wasted hundreds of thousands on private consultants fees. They should be stopped now!
ReplyDeleteThe Hull C.C. and the BSF have robbed the residents of North Hull of the Princess Elizabeth Playing Fields. They want to build a monstrosity of a building called an academy on the playing fields which could have been built at a fraction of the cost in or around the regeneration plans on the Orchard Park Estate. The cost of infrastructure in and around the Princess Elizabeth Playing Fields that would be necessary to support 1,300 pupils milling around so close to local residents and their properties are enormous. The academy would be surrounded on 3 sides by 3 major roads, the pollution alone will create problems, if,as we are led to believe, there will be massive sporting events taking place there. The roads are grid locked at peak times and the BSF have suggested that pupils ride their cycles to the academy to offset these problems, I wonder what planet they came from?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many derelict sites in Kingston upon Hull and precious little green space that the Hull city Council and the BSF could have considered but they insist that the Princess Elizabeth Playing Fields, which I might add is protected by a Restrictive Covenant which prohibits and noisy, business or activities taking place on the fields when it was gifted to the people of North Hull more than 50 years ago, public money was donated towards the cost of the fields so by right it still belongs to the residents of north Hull.
They are not only wasting money by buying the office complex but they are putting the companies that reside within it under financial pressure - In the present financial climate companies that are struggling to keep their heads above water are being forced to seek new premises and the only way the council are willing to help them out is pay a part of the removal costs. Sadly some companies will not be able to cope with the extra financial burden of this move and they will go under, its like a domnio effect, companies will downsize or close and people will be made redundant, even the charities that have their offices in the building will be financialy hurt as the council are unwilling to assist them.
ReplyDeleteI stood in the middle of Princess Elizabeth playing field yesterday and watched people enjoying themselves, cyclists, children playing football and people just generaly relaxing and this is a park that the council say is not used!!
I am so annoyed that Hull City Council are wasting our precious money on Knocking a new building down (Pavilion office, Hall Rd, Hull. I may add that Hull City Council have purchased this office block for the sum of one point three million pounds.(OUR MONEY)To make way for a car park to serve The Northern Academy On Princess Elizabeth Playing Fields. Hull City Council have no idea that Princess Elizabeth Playing Field, is on a covenant, and is a very precious open green space and is well used by the public, and PEPF will be lost forever, if they build an Academy on it!
ReplyDeleteHenry Cooper School is a perfect building and nothing wrong with it, it is on a pepper corn rent with more than a hundred years left. So why waste money knocking it down to rebuild a school on PEPF, At great expense to the tax payer, when Henry Cooper is already up and running.
Further more the barmstain drain pathway would have to be altered as BSF want to turn it into an access route.
The only grades raised by this new school will be the consultant's pay grades. When are people going to realise that great schools aren't about bricks and mortar they are about inspirational teachers, strong leadership and supporting parents. Malert Lambert is in an old Victorian building yet gets excellent results. On the other hand our two newest schools are Kingswood and Endeavour...enough said!
ReplyDeleteAfter two and a half years battling with Building Schools for the Future regarding their wish to build a large school on Princess Elizabeth Playing Fields I finally realize that although we used a common launguage-English-we had totally different ideas of the meaning of words.
ReplyDeleteEXAMPLE ONE-DEMOCRACY
When a resident at a meeting on the field raised the matter of the land having a covenant on it which prohibited any building the response from BSF officer was "Don't know anything about a covenant. All i know is that Hull Council own the land and will build what they like". That's democracy?
CONSULTATION
Several meetings were held-supposedly consultation meetings-but the BSF turned them into Public Relations meetings where they were (with supreme arrogance) trying to convince us that they alone knew what was good for us, ignoring totally our very real fears regarding flooding and severe traffic congestion.
TAXPAYERS MONEY
At one of our more recent meetings a resident expressed alarm at the enormous expense being incurred (expensive glossy brochures and at least two very expensive building reports-first Halcrow and then Waites) The reply from the BSF was truly astounding "Don't worry. You have no need to worry. It's not taxpayers money, it's a government grant" These are men paid thousands of pounds to squander millions of OUR money. Heaven help us!!!
cannot help but wonder if he has yet worked out just where the government grant comes from? VAT, Fuel duty, Road Fund Licences..etc etc
sandra said while we are in this economic decline how can the HCC justify spending the amounts of our money on building an accademy especially on the Princes Elizabeth playing fields., which is the only green space in this area and serves many households. After they have wasted all this money what happens when we drop further into decline who then suffers. It certainly wont be HCC.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that successful education is reliant on teaching not on buildings. I am a product of the fifties and sixties when we had soild brick built schools with outside toilets and pot bellied stoves in the infant/junior classrooms. Most of these were closed and sold off to build "modern style" schools with poor resistance to children.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is many of these old buildings are still standing but turned into houses, business centres or standing derelict.
What a colossal waste of resources, time and our chidrens futures! Shame on the eduction planners!