The Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan visiting the region yesterday revealed that two Sandwell schools, Abbey Infant school in Smethwick and Yew Tree Primary school are to benefit from the government’s school refurbishment programme. Both will be re-built.
This is part of the government’s £6 billion, country wide, school rebuilding and renovation scheme, now in its second phase. Work has already been completed on 260 schools. Another 277 will be completely rebuilt or modernised in the programme’s second stage.
In making this announcement Mrs Morgan stressed buildings were not the sole ingredient for educational success. She said “The learning environment is very important but the biggest factor is still the quality of teaching”.
This scheme differs from the last government’s unfocussed Building Schools For the Future programme, which proved slow, bureaucratic and expensive. The new system is efficient, targeted at need and has the hallmark of speedy delivery.