Helen Ryan, Service Director, Transforming the Learning Environment will be attending the meeting to give an update on progress with the Building Schools for the Future programme as it relates to Rushey Mead School.
Minutes:
Helen Ryan, Service Director, Transforming the Learning Environment attended the meeting and gave an update on progress with the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme as it related to Rushey Mead School.
Helen opened with a brief update on the overall BSF programme across the City and stated that the funding received from the Government for the programme was being administered by the Partnership for Schools and the City Council was working closely with the Partnership to ensure that the most appropriate schools were built in the most appropriate locations.
Helen stated that the Business Case for the BSF programme in Leicester was in two parts, namely: -
i) Identify what the City Council wanted to spend the funding on. This had been approved by the Government.
ii) Identify how the proposals were to be achieved. This part of the Business Case was still being worked on.
Helen stated that there was currently a growth in the number of children in Leicester and therefore there was a need to ensure that the schools in place were of the correct size. Currently this large piece of work was being carried out in conjunction with the Partnership for Schools.
Rushey Mead School was within Phase 2 of the BSF programme and were currently working through a ‘visioning’ process to decide how they wanted to spend the funding allocated. Work was being carried out with designers to see what could be achieved for the money available. In addition to the BSF funding Rushey Mead School had put in a bid for £1 million for Environmental Sustainability Works to be included in the works, if successful this funding would then be added to the BSF funding.
A member of the public questioned that when the BSF works at Rushey Mead School had been completed what activities would be available for the community, and would they include swimming facilities. Helen stated that all BSF schools would have a range of community facilities open during the day but with an ability to zone off sections of the school at night to ensure that the rest of the school was secure, BSF funding would not cover swimming facilities.
A member of the public questioned whether a new building would improve educational standards. Helen stated that this was one of the fundamental challenges that the Council had to address. If 21st Century was to be delivered then we needed to know what this would look like, it was really a case of delivering the curriculum. The public asked when was it expected that educational levels would increase in this area. Helen stated that she expected that the results of the investment locally would show improvements within 5 years.
A member of the public stated that he was aware that the old Soar valley school was shortly to be demolished but he understood that there was asbestos in the building and questioned what the impact would be to the local community. Helen stated that she was aware of this situation and that a specialist team would be tackling the asbestos issues before the buildings were demolished. As soon as a plan of action had been finalised Helen stated that she would inform local people.
A member of the public stated that discussions around the new school buildings had been underway for some 18 months and local people had continually requested that leisure facilities were badly needed in the area. The Chair stated that in future schools would no longer close in the eveningand would be available for community use. There were also proposals to expand facilities at Rushey Mead School to create additional sporting facilities, but this would be dependant of funding available.
Councillor Willmott informed those present that the City Council had just received a large amont of funding to develop football facilities in the City. Details would be made available at a later date when proposals had been drawn up.