School hopes collapse

The Dukeries College, Ollerton, has been dealt a bitter blow with the decision to scrap a multi-million pound transformation of the school.

Plans for the school to be virtually rebuilt at a cost of £21m-25m were stopped this week as the Government called a halt to the Building Schools For The Future programme.

The college principal, Mr Danny Smith, said they were bitterly disappointed.

“We have put a great deal of time and effort into planning a new school and we had exciting plans. We desperately need new buildings here,” he said.

Much of the school was built using the CLASP design in the 1960s, which Mr Smith said was now past its sell-by-date.

Mr Smith said the option for the Dukeries to become an academy was linked with the Building Schools For The Future programme so was also in doubt.

He said it was another blow after Nottinghamshire County Council’s decision earlier this year to cut £400,000 from the school’s budget.

But Mr Smith said they were determined to both maintain and further develop the unique facilities at the Dukeries.

He said he and the school governors would explore any option to improve facilities.

A design brief for the new school had been drawn up following consultation with pupils, staff and the county council, but no plans had been finalised.

Mr Mike Wilson, the secretary of the Newark and Sherwood branch of the NASUWT, said: “This will condemn many children to attend secondary schools that are not fit for purpose in the 21st Century.

“It was not the children who caused the banking crisis in this country, but it is the children who will suffer for it.”

The MP for Sherwood, Mr Mark Spencer, said he had already raised the issue of Building Schools for the Future with Education Secretary Mr Michael Gove twice to highlight how important it was.

“I understand the dire economic situation but that doesn’t help the Dukeries College,” he said.

“We have to find a way of rebuilding that school to give those pupils the aspiration and the inspiration to do better. I will continue to lobby the education secretary and also try to work with the county council.”

Mr Spencer said the tragedy was the county council had spent £5m on bureaucracy to get this far in the programme without even laying a brick.