The BPS School Governors arranged a working day at the school on the 5 August to undertake some urgent maintenance to the school windows at the back of the building. In addition, work was needed to repair some of the wooden cladding and fix the outdoor classroom area. Each window had to be stripped, sanded, repaired (if required), primed and then gloss painted.
The volunteer team had an aim to repair 22 windows during the day. In the end, thanks to the great turnout, we were able to strip, sand and undercoat 30 windows and then gloss 16 of those. In addition, we were able to repair the outdoor classroom and sand and undercoat much of the wooden cladding around the back of the school. We were also able to tidy the garden around the pond in preparation for a new fence, trim the hedge around the pond and cut back some overgrowing plants.
The children helped support the volunteers with good amounts of cake, tea and running errands to pick up lunch, water and ice creams. All invaluable with temperatures in the mid 20s.
Rightly or wrongly, the point remains that there is currently no funding available for this kind of school maintenance. Without the dedicated time, equipment and support of all those who helped on Sunday, the woodwork and windows would have fallen into significant disrepair over the coming year, risking further issues with damp, water ingress and cold. Therefore, if we can be proactive and manage things before they are terminal, then we can ensure that budgets are used on continuing to support the children and their teaching.
There is more work still to be done to finish off the gloss painting of the remaining windows and also to add a further coat of paint to the external wooden cladding. As such, the BPS School Governors will be looking to arrange a follow up working day in September to ensure that the school is ready for another Peak District winter.