ESC investigating buying land around Beaucamps

It is one of a number of changes to the two-school model which Education, Sport & Culture has announced, as it battles to get teachers on-side with its vision.

Teaching unions presented ESC with 45 concerns about the massive transformation programme, and ESC has responded that the majority of those concerns can be brought on board, and only three are non-negotiable.

The non-negotiable areas are the footprint of the building, the size of the corridors and the introduction of the new uniform.

On the footprint, ESC is convinced that the States Assembly would not accept a huge increase in the budget, to provide all the space that teachers want.

In a letter to teachers, ESC president Matt Fallaize outlined that the space was already generous.

‘The independent report, provided by Peter Marsh Consulting, found that the cost of the extensions required to take the existing schools to the sizes they would be under English space standards at approximately £40m.

‘Various additions to improve the two colleges were then agreed between the two committees, bringing the final cost to around £70m.’

ESC is also refusing to budge on the size of corridors, and there has also been no shift in their position on when to introduce the school uniform, despite fears from teachers that it could lead to internal division.

Those three areas aside, the main message that ESC wants to get across is that it is listening, the plan is flexible, and that the views of teachers are intrinsic to the project.

To that end, ESC has made a number of concessions.

For instance, additional £620,000 mezzanine areas are being drawn up for both schools, in order to provide further library and independent study areas.

All options are being explored to establish additional land at Les Beaucamps for PE provision, and a formal update on that is promised in the ‘near future’.

Teachers have been told that they will not be forced to stay late three days a week and teach non-curricular activities, the so-called enrichment programme will be optional for them.

Following consultation with science teachers, further changes have been made to the layouts of science areas.

One particular sticking point has been parking, and discussions on this are ongoing and looking into suggestions that a priority system could be set up for teachers with a disability or child care arrangements.

A new inspection framework was meant to be set up alongside the major transformation, and ESC has agreed to push that back six months.

The vice-principals and senior staff are due to be appointed next month, but the majority of staff still will not know which school they are teaching in or what their role is until April 2021.