News from Surrey Labour

Savaging schools building programme will effect Surrey

The decision to cut millions of pounds from Labour’s schools building programme will have knock on effects for Surrey. Schools in the Spelthorne area had begun the process of getting bids into the Building Schools for the Future now will probably have to wait many years before the current unsatisfactory buildings they use can be replaced. Specifically Mathew Arnold, St Pauls, Bishop Wand, Thamesmead, Sunbury Manor, and Thomas Knyvett, were getting ready to join the programme.

All across Surrey the demand for additional building to meet an anticipated increase in pupil numbers will not now be able to be adequately met. At the moment many classes are conducted in unsuitable prefabs often with graffiti and holes in the walls and windows. Very often in winter pupils have to sit in these classrooms with their coats on because there is no adequate heating.

Despite Education Minister Michael Gove’s claims that there is no link between poor accommodation and academic failure, recent research indicates a clear relationship exists. It is notable that for all the hundreds of schools about to lose their desperately needed building programme there is no apparent cut in money for his proposed academy schools. Clearly Mr Gove intended to use the money cut from the school building programme to pay for his academies and free schools. As a result in parts of Surrey we will see academies in bright new buildings, selecting only the brightest students, while the present Surrey schools soldier on in unsatisfactory buildings. So much for the Cameron/Clegg coalition claim to be promoting equal opportunities for all.

Surrey County Council saluted Labour’s Building Schools for The Future saying that it “provided a basis for the transformation of education and learning” in the County. It must now demand from the Con/Lib Government adequate funding to upgrade Surrey’s schools and adequately provide for a growing school population.

Other news from Surrey Labour

• Surrey Heath Tories forced into climb down on community meals - 12 January 2012
• Concern grows about pressure on schools to become Academies by "ideological" Gove - 8 January 2012
• NHS cuts in Surrey show Cameron's promises are empty - 8 January 2012