Priory School, Lundwood

RE: The fact that they have never produced the goods is not a consequence of the council owned sites

BMBC cronie! Good one. Haven't lived in Barnsley for 30+ years.

I can understand people who have an emotional attachment to the schools being upset. I also abhor the PFI system (from a public finance perspective). However, looking at the situation objectively, you can't blame the council for using money made available to try and lift educational standards in the borough. Most folk ought to be delighted.

 

RE: The fact that they have never produced the goods is not a consequence of the council owned sites

Well I apologise for that.

I have no emotional attachment to either school, I was educated in neither of them. I do admit that I am passionate about Barnsley.

I do not feel any of the delight you expect us to feel when our council sell off our educational resources and build PFI Colleges on the Barnsley greenbelt!

Shiney new buildings on new sites will not improve the level of education! This is short term thinking! Mark my words!

 

RE: The fact that they have never produced the goods is not a consequence of the council owned sites

I don't know much about the way in which sites were chosen. New buildings for new institutions is a good idea though. Can't agree with the short term thinking though. Given your passion for Barnsley you must see that something drastic had to be done. Piecemeal closures of schools and relocating of children into other expanded schools is a recipe for disaster. As I said before, the staff chosen to be at the new places will be far more important than the buildings. That's where I'd be worried!!

 

the problem is though

just how will having twice as many kids in the one place be of any benefit to anyone?

We already know that the primary school environment is better for children to learn in than the secondary environment and the one major difference is the amount of people. Now they are going to double the amount of people in the school and that can only be a bad thing.

How are the teachers supposed to interact and bond with twice as many pupils as before? They won't be able to and this will lead to the kids thinking nobody cares and therefore putting in less effort (if the teacher wont make the effort why should they?).
And then lets look at the transport side of things, children now have to travel twice as far to school, others three of four times as far. They will have to be up earlier making them more tired in the morning lessons. The area around the schools will be twice as congested as previously and it will be a nightmare for local residents who now have thousands of teenagers near them (twice as many problems as other secondary schools).

What about the subjects that are always stretched anyway? Music, PE etc. How do they plan on getting all the kids to use the gym etc?

Exams will be a nightmare trying to control them all.

And the most important one. The children that are bullied will now have twice as much humiliation and pain because the stage is even bigger for the bully's to act on.


I see what is being said about the schools needing to be rebuilt but look at Wath comp. They've rebuilt on the same site and the school looks excellent now. No need to merge it with another, just rebuild on the exisiting site, or move to a new one in the same area if that's better but to merge schools of thousands is madness and isn't planning for the future at all

 

RE: the problem is though

I agree totally.

What you missing is the real motivation behind the schemes. The PFI element keeping short term costs low and the huge gains from the land sell offs for development. The new sites will and have been purchased relatively inexpensively under compulsory purchase orders!

 

RE: the problem is though

Transport is an issue but there are many many successful schools in areas where pupils travel far greater distances than they will have to in Barnsley. You are wrong in saying that primary schools have a better learning environment than secondary schools because of their size ( there are a hundred other more important differences).
In general, the size of a school has little difference to the well-being and attainment in the school. Class sizes do but that is different matter. Not sure what overall size the new places will be but some of the largest secondary schools are the most successful in the country. Just depends how they are run.
Finally, the exams that are the biggest nightmare to run are the SATs at 14 ...and they've just been scrapped!

 

Chuffin dump

Full of puffs and wimps. Be good to see the back of it.

 

RE: Thanks...

...for all your replies, although most of them are of no use whatsoever! Thanks to those of you who will pass on news of the book to friends and relatives - word of mouth is key to the success of the project. I didn't intend to start a heated debate on the Council's plans for building new schools, but there is clearly plenty of feeling amongst you!

From my point of view I agree with some comments, but feel I must correct others. The quality of teaching staff in Barnsley is as good as anywhere else in the country. I've taught in 4 different local authorities around England, including experience in several Barnsley schools. Sadly the attitude to education and its inherent value among the people of Barnsley does differ. It's very hard to motivate youngsters who see no need to obtain qualifications and have inherited a very negative attitude from their parents. It is this attitude, that exists amongst a significant minority of the community, that is the biggest factor in Barnsley underachieving in educational terms.

I agree that bigger schools won't necessarily change this and I fear it may have other negative consequences, some of which are covered in earlier posts. However, I also agree that better facilities will have a positive influence and may contribute to raising standards.

With regards to Priory and Willowgarth, I just hope that any traditional animosity between the Lundwood and Grimethorpe communities doesn't spill over into the playground and inhibit the potential progress that could be made...

 

Mr Pickles

my English teacher for five years. Wat a star! Best Teacher i've ever known. and a Barnsley fan, used to keep his season ticket in his shirt pocket!

 

agree the general standard of teaching in barnsley is good (ex wife a secondary school teacher, whom i despise by the way) and thus i appreciate how much out of hours work and prep they have to do... agree its more of an environmental problem with the kids, and their lack of parental support and ecouragement.

 

Mr pickles was a ledgend i had him for drama! Mr Martin was my form teacher what a top bloke he was aswell. Had some great memorys from school, I carnt believe there merging priory beacause it has got sports college status now, I should imagine the school is very self sufficiant because of that. Am a bit gutted about it to be honast.

 

I went to what is one of Barnsleys better schools

and some of the teaching staff were a disgrace!

 

For an English teacher

he did not do a lot for your spelling.