New school year at Somerset school could be delayed over unsafe building
The main building at Haygrove School has been shut for the past week after being deemed to be 'unsafe' by the Department for Education
Last updated 29th Jun 2024
The new school year might have to be delayed for some pupils in Somerset - after Haygrove School's main building was closed for urgent safety reasons.
It's been declared unsafe by the Department for Education, less than three years after it was built.
A perimeter has already been put in place around the building - now deemed to be dangerous - as a precaution.
The school say they 'wholeheartedly apologise' and parents are told they'll know very soon the plan, following a visit by the DfE, who were on-site yesterday.
The building was originally deemed to be safe, however, following a number of surveys on the construction - completed back in October 2020 - this decision has been reversed 'until further notice'.
It's not yet known when the 'high-quality temporary accommodation' - to be provided by the DfE - will be delivered, something the school have called 'far from ideal'.
Around the country, two other schools are reported to have been impacted by this decision by the Department for Education; the Sir Frederick Gibberd College, in Harlow, Essex, and Buckton Fields Primary School, in Northampton.
In a statement on their website, a spokesperson from Haygrove School said: "Haygrove School and Quantock Education Trust have been engaging with the Department for Education (DfE) over the past 12 months to ensure our main school building is fully fit for purpose and of the quality our students and staff deserve.
"The DfE has overall responsibility for the main building, which was completed in October 2020, and has undertaken technical investigations over the past few weeks to determine its long-term viability.
"Once we have further information from the DfE, we will be able to confirm to staff what the arrangements will be for setting up provision in the alternative accommodation. Our team is also working swiftly to make any necessary adaptations to our curriculum, support for our students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), transition arrangements for our incoming Year 7 students, timetables and arrangements for GCSE Results Day, and will be able to update on this in due course. In the meantime, we are rapidly drawing up contingency plans for the start of term until the required temporary accommodation is available.
"We will work closely with colleagues to help minimise the disruption to our children’s learning as much as possible.
"We remain extremely grateful for the support and patience of our students, colleagues and families and will continue to keep all parties updated when we can – we very much wish we could provide more information at this stage, but we simply do not have it yet. What we can say however is that though we are needing to navigate the current situation, we are very much looking forward to having an excellent school building which our community is proud of."
Anyone with questions is urged to get in touch with the school on communications@quantocked.co.uk.