Sheffield school for children with disabilities hit by hydrotherapy pool problems for two years

A meeting of Sheffield City Council’s finance and performance policy committee heard yesterday (August 19) that heating problems have shut the pool at Woolley Wood School in Chaucer Road, Parson Cross for at least two years. Some children had been unable to take up their school places as a consequence.

The primary school teaches children with severe and complex learning difficulties and disabilities.

The committee approved £674,700 in funding for new air source heating equipment to heat the main school building. The Department for Education has provided £270,000 and the rest comes from a local renewable energy fund.

A report to the committee said that £150,000 has already been allocated to deliver a new gas boiler solution for the swimming pool.

Committee members heard that the school had concerns about its original heating installation and had commissioned a survey to understand what the issues were with the system.

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The survey suggested the system was beyond repair and this was confirmed by a council team. The replacement system should cut heating costs.

Coun Mike Levery said that other work had already been approved: “The whole thing totals £1 million, this school was only built in 2011-12, so 12 years and we’re having to scrap the whole thing and start again effectively.”

He said that the original air source heat pumps hadn’t deteriorated, they weren’t up to the job in the first place. He asked whether the pool had ever been able to operate.

Council strategic director of children’s services Meredith Dixon Teasdale visited the school recently and was told the pool hasn’t operated for the past two academic years.

She said: “It is having an impact on the children in the school. A number of them have hydrotherapy as part of their EHCP (education, health and care plan) and part of the conversation has been how we move things forward because actually it’s also impacting on being able to place local children within that school who have those needs.”