Should Scalby School be Completely Rebuilt?

That question has been posed to the town's MP by a local councillor as the school says it hopes to have more classrooms open next week.

A Scarborough Councillor has suggested rebuilding Scalby School.

The school is currently unable to use 17 of its classrooms which are affected by RAAC concrete, many pupils are yet to return to the site after the summer holidays and are working from home.

Local Councillor Janet Jefferson asked the town's MP if a complete rebuild might be the way to go.

Scarborough and Whitby MP - Sir Robert Goodwill - visited the school last week he thinks the current repairs are the best course of action.

While year 11 students are able to use rooms on the school site, year seven students are being bussed to Scarborough UTC for lessons and other year groups are using remote learning to work from home.

Sir Robert says that a number of temporary solutions have been looked at including using old school buildings elsewhere in the town.

In a letter to parents last night headteacher - Chris Robertson - said that year 10 students might be able to return to the school on Monday if surveyors approve binging five classrooms back in to use. In his letter to parents and carers Mr Robertson said:

Dear Parents and Carers,

I just wanted to give you an update on the current situation and what has happened this week as part of Phase 2, rebuilding. It is important to understand that I am just as frustrated as you are about the current situation. The sooner we can get all students back into full time, face to face education the better. Please continue to be patient as we try and find solutions to solve the problems we face and make this return happen as quickly as possible.

Last week I met with Scarborough MP, Sir Robert Goodwill and voiced my frustrations about the current situation facing our students. This then led to a further meeting with Sir Robert and Baroness Barran who is the understudy to Secretary of State, Gillian Keegan. These meetings were productive, and I felt reassured about the future of the building both in the medium term, the procurement of temporary classrooms onto the school site and in the longer term as we discussed the need for a rebuild of the school. These discussions were certainly constructive.

This week initial plans were presented to Portakabin who are working through these proposals and will start to firm up timeframes over the next week. I will provide you with updates regarding this as soon as I have them.

Year 10 Students

Tomorrow morning, I am meeting with the surveyor to ensure that the work that has been ongoing on site allows us to access 5 more classrooms in our main building. If the surveyor signs this work off, we are expecting to be able to allow Year 10 students back on-site, full time from Monday 2nd October. Year 10 students will be provided with a new timetable on Monday morning when they arrive on site. If there are any issues during the meeting with the surveyor that delays this return, I will let you know tomorrow.

Year 8 & 9 Students

Once the Year 10 students are back on site, further work will be undertaken to get Year 8 & 9 students back full- time. Mr Davis is currently rewriting the entire school timetable to make this happen. This process usually takes around 3 months from start to finish, this is being completed over several days and is an enormous task, especially given the limitations on room availability.

We do require some modifications to spaces and classrooms around the school site to allow Year 8 & 9 students to come back full time I am hopeful that these modifications to the school building over the next couple of weeks will allow us to get all Year 8 & 9 students back on site by October Half-term. Due to classrooms restrictions, classes are likely to remain bubbled, similar to how the school operated during the pandemic. I will provide you with further information relating to Year 8 & 9 students at the start of next week. We are intending to run an information evening for Year 8 & 9 parents next week at the Rugby club. We will provide further details about this tomorrow.

Today marks the 20th working day since we got the news about the change in DFE guidance relating to RAAC. I am extremely proud of the school community for how they have responded over the past 20 days. Please remain patient and allow us time to resolve this situation. I am excited about the classroom facilities that will be provided by Portakabin and feel we can continue to provide a good standard of education until these are provided on site.

Speaking after his visit to the school last week, Sir Robert Goodwill said that while in the short term making repairs to the affected classrooms seems like the quickest and least disruptive way to get all students back in to the classroom, he does think that in the longer term there is a case for expanding the Scalby site with new facilities.

Sir Robert has reiterated that the government will cover the costs of the repairs resulting from the RAAC concrete issues and says he's pressing for Scalby School to also be reimbursed for the costs involved in transporting pupils to the UTC.