Now that I have got the really important stuff out of the way – the children’s results – I’d like to give you a quick update on what we’ll be doing to improve the buildings and grounds over the summer holidays.
At the beginning of this school year, we had our roof replaced and despite a very soggy Autumn term with lots of leaks and disruption caused mainly by the 17 (!) layers of roofing felt that the contractors had to remove before they were able to actually replace the roof. We are now – almost – 100% watertight which is a good feeling after many years of leaks and paying for patch repairs. However, even though Leeds City Council paid most of the quarter of a million pound bill (gasp!), school had to contribute £20,000 to the cost which wiped out our modest buildings budget for the whole year.
Our brilliant PTA have worked harder than ever this year to raise enough money to resurface the KS1 playground which is looking every year of its 45 years old. The works will be started in the first week of the holidays when the new tarmac surface will be laid. After 5 weeks of drying out, in the last couple of weeks of the holiday, new playground markings will be applied, along with a rubber mulch surface to the EYFS outdoor area. In addition to this, the PTA have also paid for a mural to be painted on the KS1 old ‘ball wall’ which will include the school logo. Hopefully all the works will be completed for when we arrive back in September & will be looking fantastic! Thanks to the PTA for their hard work and to parents for supporting the many events that have been necessary to raise such a phenomenal figure. With ever shrinking school budgets, school would never have been able to afford these improvements and it’s great that we have such a committed group of volunteers to provide these fantastic ‘extras’ for our children.
In addition to the PTA funded works on the playground, school will be replacing 3 of the remaining exterior timber doors around the building with new aluminium doors, having the Y3/4 classrooms, T-areas, music room and libraries redecorated and the bungalow fitted out with classroom furniture.
We are also replacing a number of interactive whiteboards around the school and buying 2 further class sets of i-pads so that each phase of school will have a set to share.
These works bring us to the end of the available money!
Hopefully the whole school will be looking marvellous when we return in the Autumn – all classrooms have been redecorated and had new furniture over the last couple of years and all the communal areas have also been refreshed. Plans for the future development of the building will need to focus on the very scruffy looking timber fascias around the roof – our intention is to replace this with a UPVC product which won’t need the regular maintenance that timber does – probably at great expense! We need to get saving now!