Sheffield primary school selected for the Government's £1billion Schools Rebuilding Programme

Brunswick Community Primary School in Station Rd, Woodhouse has been selected as part of the third round of the Government’s flagship Schools Rebuilding Programme.

In James Cleverly's first announcement as Education Secretary, he said the schools would either receive ‘state of the art’ rebuilds or refurbishments.

The investment seeks to provide modern classrooms for thousands of pupils as part of the Programme, with work on the rebuilds starting immediately.

Mr Cleverly said: “Our School Rebuilding Programme is already making a difference to the lives of pupils and their teachers. It is creating greener school sites that are fit for the future and that local communities can be proud of.

“We know how important it is to have high-quality school facilities. That is why we continue to invest billions in our rebuilding programme.”

Buildings will be updated and modernised, while new sports halls, music rooms, science laboratories and dining areas will be included as part of the scheme.

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The Government said the buildings will be net-zero carbon in operation.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said that while the programme was “welcome”, 2022 capital funding for schools was £1.9 billion less than it had been in 2009 in real terms, and that the investment needed to be compared with what had been cut, “which is 50 times larger”.

“Capital spending was the largest cut to education and was imposed immediately after the 2010 election. If the Government had not cut Labour's school rebuilding programme, £27 billion more would have been spent on school and college buildings,” he said.

He added that a National Audit Office report of 2017 had shown that £6.7 billion was needed to restore all school buildings to a satisfactory condition “and a further £7.1 billion to bring parts of school buildings from a satisfactory to good condition”.

“The NEU believes these figures are likely to be an underestimate as they were formed from the DfE's 2014 Property Data Survey, so parts of the school estate will have deteriorated further since then,” he said.

“This 2014 survey also did not take asbestos into account, so these figures make no assessment of the cost of asbestos management and removal,” he added.

“60 per cenet of schools were built before 1976 and around 85 per cent of schools contain asbestos, which not only makes them more difficult and expensive to maintain, but a riskier environment to work or learn in.”