Back to school for Bournemouth Mayor

The Mayor of Bournemouth, Cllr Bob Chapman, was welcomed back to his old school to officially unveil the newly developed maths block at Bournemouth School. Works were carried out and completed on time and on budget by Dorset based Greendale Construction.

Poole based Greendale Construction have carried out a £600,000 contract to build the new maths block at the school, £100,000 of the funds was granted by Bournemouth local authority and the school raised the balance funds themselves.

The so-called temporary accommodation in which the mathematics department had to operate for many years was housed in two truly awful buildings, which were on separate parts of the site. The HORSA block was demolished to make way for this building was put up in 1947, with a projected 10 year lifespan; it was not a building to be proud of and it was always a source of amazement that the schools standards in mathematics had remained so high.

The new block now boasts four new classrooms on the ground floor and a further four new classrooms on the upper floor, all of the classrooms offer interactive state of the art white boards, which incorporate television and video which can be accessed via computers. The new block also includes staff accommodation for up to six teachers on the upper floor, as well as school storage facilities and the building is fully insulated and fitted with draught proof windows.

At the unveiling ceremony, The Mayor of Bournemouth, Cllr Bob Chapman stated, “I am so proud to unveil this new maths block, it’s certainly a far cry from my old school facilities, we had to make do with a temporary concrete hut, which stayed for longer than expected, this new building is truly state of the art.”

Head teacher of the school John Granger states, “We are extremely proud of our new maths block and of the work carried out by Greendale Construction and other local contractors. It was not by any means only my dream to replace the truly awful HORSA block and once we decided to do something about it we faced several years of frustration. As a successful school we never seem to qualify for additional funding for capital projects, and the maintenance of our buildings – which are amongst the oldest and least suitable school buildings in the area - sucks up most of our annual capital funding. However, several years ago Bournemouth LEA (as it was then) generously earmarked £100,000 towards this project, having previously tried, unsuccessfully, to secure government grant aid for us. The LEA’s generosity acted as a spur to our own fund-raising. Over a number of years funds from our annual grant have been held back and we also launched the ‘Add It Up appeal.’