“After a while it just becomes part of the battle. You get used to it. I don’t apologise for the building as much as I used to, and now I see the positives as much as the negatives.”
Hundreds of headteachers are in the same position. Nobody quite knows how many because buildings are listed under their original use rather than their current one.
Sophie Allen, head of Stonebridge Primary, is the newest recruit to this club. She got the phone call telling her the school was being listed in the middle of the autumn term, and the news is still sinking in.
“The most important thing about this is the impact on the education of these children - some of the most vulnerable children in the local area. It makes me angry,” she says. “Whoever pushed this forward should have considered who we actually serve.
“Somebody in a posh house decided my school was precious and should be listed. So are my kids: they are precious. I just want to make this school a place where children will learn to be able to reach the stars.”
Squirrels in the roof
She is in a particularly difficult position. When she took over at Stonebridge it was in special measures with falling rolls, a budget deficit, and a dilapidated building. There were squirrels in the roof, dangerous windows, missing toilet seats, an ancient fire alarm system and electrics which needed attention – and that was only the start of the shopping list.
As Ms Allen and her staff hauled the school out of special measures and more local parents started sending their children again, plans were developing to give the Stonebridge pupils a new building. The once-notorious estate on which most of them live has been redeveloped over the past few years, and the idea was to build a new primary in the grounds of another local school. The plans would be funded by redeveloping the Stonebridge site for housing.
Fortunately, as planning continued, Ms Allen also continued to improve the environment in her Victorian school, spending money on the roof, on windows, on the alarm system, and on the outside area for Reception children.
“The outside area was basically mud. It was an absolute b****y disgrace. My first two weeks here, I spent a lot of it in my office crying. I couldn’t believe that these children, the most deprived in London, were coming to school to play in mud. It was horrible.”
It became a priority for her to improve the environment of the children spending money even though the plan was to abandon the building. “They only get one chance at education,” she says simply.
As yet, Ms Allen has no idea of what the future will hold but will continue to fight for a new building if it appears the best option for her pupils.
Stonebridge is an extreme example of the problems which heads in listed Victorian buildings can face when years of neglect have intervened. John Vousden at Downs Junior in Brighton is further down the road of improving his surroundings and has a clear affection for the building, mixed with exasperation.
Getting him to show you round the school is an extraordinary experience. One minute he is pointing to the spot in the corridor where water wells up through the floor in heavy rain, and the next he is explaining with pride how a glazed wall will move to improve classroom space.
You can see where the rolling programme of improvements has been. Classrooms have been acquiring false ceilings to improve warmth and hide power cables and dodgy plaster. Others have had work done on the plaster, new paint and blinds. The contrast between a “before” and “after” classroom are astounding, as is the cost of transformation compared to more usual schools.
But many of the improvements are expensive and invisible, such as the waterproofing membrane beneath replacement plaster which had to be the right kind. And there’s the cupboard in one room which is actually deep enough to hold the teacher’s files… because it has been meticulously moved forward in its alcove by a few centimetres.
A modern extension (“it’s a grey area whether or not that’s covered by the listing,” says Vousden drily) houses the staffroom amongst other things, and he’s proud of the new toilets, replacing their rather aromatic predecessors.
Renovating past renovations
Typically for Victorian schools, summer heat and winter cold are problems in many classrooms because of the huge windows, but airconditioning is out, as are any other solutions visible from the outside streets.
The current headache is the bell tower, which was partially rebuilt in the 1980s and which partially collapsed in high winds at the start of term. Emergency work alone cost £12,000 – and this time round, the tower will have to be rebuilt properly.
“There’s no help available, absolutely nothing. Every time the governors change they always come in with the presumption that you can go out and get funding or a grant. There’s very little around and we struggle.
“Schools like this are still catching up. We are renovating past renovations. Each time you do something it costs a lot of money, partly because of the listing and also because of the age of the building. Making it fit for purpose in the 21st century probably means spending more on it.
“The first year I was here the council were going to replace the windows on the west elevation. They were huge. They took them out and completely replaced them. It cost £50,000.”
Vousden is particularly proud of the improvements they have recently made to the street entrance of the school, where a raggy hedge had marked the perimeter ever since the Victorian railings went for wartime scrap.
After much discussion, the hedge has gone and railings are reinstated: not authentic replicas, which cost £20,000 per section, but temporary black railings. The building now looks fantastic, and the railings are pretty sturdy.
This kind of fix pleases Dr Ian Dungavell, director of the Victorian Society. He has been campaigning for years to encourage government and local authorities to think more about refurbishing old buildings, and for the pots of money available for new builds to be used more on the old.
Community Continuity
There are good reasons to do this other than conservation, he argues. For one thing, there is a sense of community continuity about a public building which is in use over several generations. The most prestigious public schools are proud of their old buildings.
And it is a far more environmentally-friendly option, not least because Victorian buildings can perform as well in energy terms as the most modern construction. Moreover, he says it can be time consuming to use modern-buildings’ energy saving features after the initial enthusiasm, whereas older schools tend to be much better to start with.
“Victorian buildings are very solidly built, with more space in the classrooms than under modern standards, and large windows. If they are looked after – and this is the crucial thing – they can be very popular with teachers.
“These schools can quite easily accommodate 21st century facilities like lighting and heating and presentation of the classrooms, with some investment. They can cope with changing circumstances.
“New schools are not great quality constructions and probably designed for 20 or 30 years of life. These buildings are already 100 yrs old and perfectly capable of doing another 100 with refurbishment.”
Dr Dungavell cites an Islington primary which has recently been refurbished to make it work better. It had a boys’ and a girls’ entrance: now a classroom has become the main entrance, with other improvements made. There are also imaginative decorations and storage linking the rooms – which, of course, can all be removed.
He says when major work is being considered it is important to bring in a sympathetic architect. It is also vital to have an overall plan for the building rather than make changes piecemeal. High-quality work can then be staged as the budget allows.
“Often the reason people don’t like their building is there’s been all sorts of ill-advised work done over the years. You have got to feel for heads: there’s all sorts of pressure on their budgets. Lots of piecemeal alterations can be very unattractive.
“We need someone like Anne Maurice, the House Doctor to come around and tell you how to preserve buildings and make them more attractive spaces.”
Dr Dungavell agrees that refurbishment is a more difficult option because of the disruption which can be caused, and also because funding often seems skewed towards shiny new buildings. “People do love a photo opportunity,” he says.
But he encourages heads to keep on trying. “I think most heads are trying to do their best. Some cases don’t have much of a choice – the education director comes along and says there’s no money for this, but money for a new build. People would never consider letting their homes get into a mess. It requires at least one senior person in the management team of the school to have that responsibility and I know there are huge pressures on school staff.
“But think about the example of St Pancras station. 15 years ago nobody loved it, and now people are arriving early for their trains to enjoy it.”
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