‘New lease of life’ for Hatfield school

A GOVERNMENT building grant will give “a new lease of life” to a Hatfield school, according to the headteacher.

Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School was identified by Education Secretary Michael Gove as one of 261 UK schools in urgent need of repair as part of the Priority School Building Programme.

The �2bn project aims at renovating, rebuilding and repairing old and dilapidated schools, with work to be carried out over the next five years.

And headteacher Theo Nickson said the funding would solve several long-standing problems with the school buildings.

“We’ve had concerns about the state of our buildings for a long time,” Ms Nickson said.

“The school was built over 50 years ago and there are areas such as the heating, the windows and the roof that have been causing us big concerns.

“We’ve never been able to get the level of funding we needed to get the work done. Our only hope was to put a bid in.

“It’s going to be a new lease of life. We’re absolutely over the moon about it. The issues will finally be addressed, creating a really first class learning environment for the girls and the staff.”

Ms Nickson said she was expecting to hear from the Education Department in two weeks about the level of funding and the nature of the building work.

“We think we need �3m at least to bring it up to standard,” she said. “But that’s what we think. I’ve no idea how much we’re going to get.”

The headteacher added that students would not be disrupted during building works.

“I’m fairly certain the costing includes any temporary accommodation we may need. There will not be any disruption to learning,” she said.