High hopes for Les Beaucamps rebuild
Tuesday 20th July 2010, 2:29PM BST.
Deputy Carol Steere visited the site of Les Beaucamps High redevelopment yesterday.
THE Education minister hopes that the first phase of the redevelopment of Les Beaucamps High School could be complete in about three years’ time.
After the planners gave permission in principle for the project last year, Education has now submitted detailed drawings for their consideration.
Deputy Carol Steere (pictured) said her department hoped to take its report to the States by the end of the year with approved working plans, tendering prices and timescales for the Assembly’s consideration.
‘It’s a tight programme, but I don’t see any reason why the States should not progress it at that stage,’ she said. ‘The States agreed to the secondary school rebuilding programme at the start of the century and I find it sad that we have reached 2010 before the Assembly can be asked to confirm this.’
- Read the full story in the Guernsey Press. See below for subscription details.
- To read Guernsey Press stories in full click here for subscription details. Individual editions are now available online.
Island Life
All about Guernsey
Ambassador of the Year 2011
History & Heritage
Visitor Information
Guernsey's government
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
Useful Links
i am 16ompol and have just left this school having comopleted my 5 year education span and am so thrilled to hear that after years of putting the project on the back shelf for reasons unknown the redevelopment of Les Beaucamps School is being given priority. Despite the dated and in some areas dreary facilities the ethos of the school is second to none the teachers are tactful , friendly, and always ready to help and i for one have found my time at Les Beaucamps School enjoyable and productive and wish all future pupils and staff the facilities they deserve to maintain the high standard of teaching they have done so far and beilieve that the redevelopment will be advantageous to the area of castel as a whole
Report abuse
I left their last year to and wood like tto thank all the techers and all and all my friends for four wondeful years.
Report abuse
Well done girls,your employer will be grateful for the high standards you have obviously attained!
Or is someone taking the Mickey?
Report abuse
If I was going to write something in support of my school and praising it, I would get my spelling and grammar correct.
Report abuse
Auntie GP – I’ll think you’ll find that it is “If I WERE to write”
Interesting that you have shown up your own illiteracy by mocking others.
Report abuse
At the risk of joining the illiterate:
Beaucamp Teacher: “I’ll think” ?
“I think”, or “I should think”, perhaps.
Which were you trying for?
Report abuse
nice one Teacher. indeed, do not be surprised if there is a huge, mostly hidden, resentment from the right wing community at these children having a decent school. not only will they hate carol steer for her left of centre politics but will also have a big problem conceding that in exchange for keeping their divisive 11+ they had to agree to the rebuild of the secondaries.
Report abuse
don i find the last line of your comment “is someone taking the Mickey?” quite sarcastic and as i have not yet recieved my GCSE results i was not claiming to have acheived high academic marks i was simply stating the ethos of the school and the teachers is second to none and they have always been supportive so that last line is irrelevant and bears no link with either my comment or the comment made by the user after me.
Report abuse
Interesting that the whole debate on the building location detail has not drawn a single comment here.
I hope that means that the presented plans are no longer causing the removal of many established trees or creating a visible blot on the sky line from the view up from the coast on what is currently a green vista.
Maybe the application has sort to use the site more appropriately and actually develop on the existing footprint, and as with the St Peter Port school, house students elsewhere while the building is demolished and the replacement errected, can only hope…
Report abuse
…oh, didn’t you know, Guernabroad, it’s all fine!
Apparently, 1/2 a dozen people who attended a recent farcical ‘eyesores’ meeting (who, bless, genuinely believed that anyone gives a monkey’s t*ss about whether we like ‘modern’ structures plonked here, there any everywhere…as long as there’s enough 000′s on the application, they get approved anyway), considered taking lovely spots and covering them in concrete to be a GREAT idea….
so that’s that all sorted.
Report abuse
What I am disappointed about is the fact that Deputy Steere has been photographed standing against a backdrop of several small traditional fields, soon to become a building site.
This new school project could have been designed to be accommodated within the existing school grounds but sadly the fields, the trees and the associated wildlife is all for the chop – literally.
Report abuse
I agree with you Donkey’s Wotsits, but the area is unused, as when I was there it was known as the smoking area.
The school has a great ethos, but there are some dreadful teachers which shouldn’t be there, but it has great ones too.
I hope the new school is built well, and can easily be maintained, as the States never maintain their buildings and are left to wrack and ruin, as shown in this dilapidated building.
Report abuse
Once it is gone it is gone.
It would appear from the comments above that again short sighted vision is in evidence.
The Island can only be eroded so much before you loose what it was that makes people want to come to it, be it to prop up the economy or tourism.
Sustainability is not about chopping trees and removing fields. What is a little inconvenience if it is the rigth long term decision to make.
Given the application has just gone in (Tuesday’s paper 20th July), then hopefully those who put together such a good demonstration many months back can muster the stength to go forth again.
Nothing is final till the first sod is raped.
Report abuse
Carol Steere. Seriously. What purpose DO you serve? I’m still trying to figure it out.
Guern abroad, tell me about it.
GG. Unused? By who/what, exactly…?
Oh, OF COURSE, PEOPLE…!
You claim to be empathic with D.W’s views ref the wildlife, yet go on to state that it was only ever a ‘smoking spot’ (for people), so presumably, worthless… (to people)…
much like the rest of the ‘unused’ (by human beings) land on the planet, then.
That’s EXACTLY the (narrow minded) attitude Government and large corporations are looking for, GG. The same one that’s allowing them to start at the thin end of the wedge, before building up to raping and ruining the planet, solely for their own gain, whilst you sit back and suck up the spin about how it’s being done for your benefit, that is, destroying natural habitation all over the world that other beings have an equal right to live in for the sole benefit of MAN.
i mean, all the other life forms can go whistle, ay? It’s not like they and their needs are as important as ours, they’re funny looking, serve no OBVIOUS purpose (to us) or anything. Besides, it looks untidy…
an’ after all, when they’ve destroyed it, maybe they’ll leave a sole commemorative tree an’ a few fag butts to mark the spot…
so that’s ok, then.
Report abuse
Whoah there Scarlett
Have you ever considered how BIG the world is?
Report abuse
Scarlett,
At the risk of incurring your “toff speak vitriol” please stick to the issue for debate. this is a debate about education not saving the world!
maybe we should stop providing the cheapest public schools in the British Isles and value ALL of our children equally regarding education that way ALL of our children would have an EQUAL chance of reaching their full potential. The fact is most of our children succeed in spite of our divided education system,not because of it.
Report abuse
Scarlett, I would normally agree with you, especially areas which are similar to this, but what else do you suggest to build a new school?
Report abuse
scarlett – if you want to get stuck into the education minister for fighting hard for the rebuild of our secondary schools, then say so. i don’t buy your anguish for the neighbouring field but, if you really want an environmental outrage to get cross about, google ‘trafigura guilty of dumping toxic waste in ivory coast town’ or similar, and then thank your lucky stars. i know the college of education were slow to extinguish their little incinerator but your’e pushing it a bit to compare them to trafigura and their mates?
Report abuse
GG. Apologies for the rant, things like this really get my goat, and the fact that people can’t see this sort of politically motivated posturing for what it is, equally so….
Ray. Don’t think for a moment that if our States members had more power in a bigger arena they wouldn’t take full advantage of that. We are simply a microcosm of what happens all over the world we’re part of, every day.
No one has yet explained (or questioned?) why they can’t use the same basic footprint that the school is built on already, or a site that doesn’t involve robbing our island of yet more of what’s left of it’s green zoned land.
If our island was left to politicians and civil servants, and people didn’t take a stand occasionally, (as in the incinerator debate), we would be drowning in developement (like we aren’t already) and there’d be no ‘worthless’ green left whatsoever left, as they attempt to pander to the rich and win votes with massive projects such as this.
Blah, Kevin. What short memories people have. Here’s Ms Steere, hero of the people, ‘championing’ a new uber school, and evidentially redeeming herself in the eyes of one of the largest swathes her constituency, that is, PARENTS…when just a while ago, she was the awful ogre who was P-ing them off and losing votes by supporting the closure of certain primary schools…
judging by the feedback, she’s ticking every (voting) box along the way….no wonder she looks so smug in that picture, probably contemplating which tree will be left for her to have a ‘Carol woz ‘ere, this woz ‘er idea’ plaque put on?
Our island is slowly, insidiously dripping away all it’s natural beauty and agricultural land, forever. If the predictions are right, that’s the same currently ‘worthless’ land that will be essential for keeping us alive, never mind educated, in the not too distant future.
When your well educated children grow up, maybe they’ll still have the beautiful, thriving island full of character and charm that we can enjoy, or maybe we’ll have allowed it to disappear under concrete, piece by ‘one more bit won’t matter’, piece, and all they will want to do is LEAVE it….
and when they ask ‘but why do we have to live in on such an ugly, defunct rock and import all our food at such cost we can barely afford it?’, I just hope they’ll believe you, when you say, ‘it was all for your benefit, kids’.
Thin end. Wedge.
Report abuse
Scarlett,
my kids are all now well into adulthood. you may well be better served applying your undoubted talents to something like sewage being pumped into the sea rather than new schools being built.
Report abuse
I do, Kevin, along with a million other things in my very busy day.
It’s called multi tasking.
Report abuse
Scarlett I can only hope that you’re not a parent. I imagine that your children would never be good enough.
Reading your posts for some time now you never seem to have a good word to say about anything. You’re filled with this hatred and venom which is astounding. Might I suggest that you take up a kickboxing class? You seem to be in need of an outlet to your frustration and the GP stories/posters/deputies/states members/states proposals/police/parents are bearing the brunt of it.
I also doubt you do have a very busy day as you seem to be one of the top contributors!
Positivity, Scarlett, just once in a while will stop you turning into a shrivelled old hag throwing cats at passer by’s….
Report abuse
Flash
Part of Scarlett’s anger problem might be that because of his chosen wussy name he often gets mistaken for a female of the opposite sex
Report abuse
scarlett – i still do not see where you are coming from. carol steere, responsible for education and taking a share of island responsibility in saving island pennies (pennies which lyndon trott had persuaded the states to give to his banker mates for zero 10), correctly called that st sampsons infants and st andrews primary should close. every rational argument supported that (opposition was mostly from parents not wanting to drive half a mile to another school) but populism and little kids’ faces ruled and the states bottled it bigtime – and i believe trotty and bernie and other policy bods bottled it too (correct me if i am wrong someone). the beaucamps rebuild needs a bigger space for several reasons, including the fact the original school was only big enough for the first few years of its life. this ‘massive project’ as you descibe it, is NOT pandering to the rich, scarlett – the rich all have their kids paid for at the colleges (in case they have to come into contact with the working class), private education which you subsidise. most of the population living in your green guernsey countryside are the island wealthy scarlett – the majoirity of ordinary folk are stuffed into town and the northern matchbox estates. of course guernsey’s environment is important but so is its childrens’ education. we are still achieving a balance. maybe targeting bigger enemies like rain forest logging companies would be more useful (you never know, maybe court row is still home to those faceless multi-national directors and maybe stan brouard still flogs teak (prove to me it is a sustainable timber). it just ain’t simple scarlett.
Report abuse
blah, you ain’t wrong so no need to correct you
Report abuse
Flash. My posts are invariably regarding the same ol’ subjects that many islanders have problems with, judging from others feedback and the lively debates we appear to (lets face it) damn well enjoy.
Despite this, I have no doubt that their lives are as full and generally happy as mine.
Don’t get me wrong, I am flattered that someone of your calibre should take the time to monitor and read all my comments so avidly…especially as they only take a few minutes to write, and that I pretty much forget about them after a brief post vent glow, right up until an intelligent, sentient soul chooses to agree with my views, or challenge them.
Sadly, bless you, people who can only make pathetic, rude personal observations about me and my life, of which they know nada, whilst having nothing to contribute about the actual subject matter being discussed, does not impress or interest me.
…as for the rest, well dears, there are leaders, and there are followers, and judging by the sterling job Carol has done on you all, it’s obvious to me which category SHE falls into, and fair play to her…
I am sure, with your support, she’ll be taking Trotskie’s job in the next election!
-good luck ;0)
Report abuse
Scarlett –
firstly I love it that you described the eyesore debate as farcicle and only attended by half a dozen people. It was attended by close to 200 and the vote went in favour of the architects because more than half of those in attendance did not agree with the proposition that “architects are ruining Guernsey”. Is this why you feel the need to belittle the event – because it didn’t go in favour of your own personal opinions?
Secondly you last post criticises people for making personal posts about you “about which they know nada”. Are you certain this is something you yourself have never done? I can remember a few of your rants which have had no basis in fact and had negative and unpleasant personal slants to them.
Report abuse
Carol Steere makes the wrong decisions all the time, blah.
Report abuse
Scarlett (O’Hara?), it’s not my usual behaviour let me assure you. However, I have seen you belittle and bully other contributors with your unnecessarily long posts and patronising wording that I thought it hide time that some home truths were sent your way.
I live in hope that one day a news story will inspire a positive word or two from you. As on the whole you seem to be an intelligent person who is able to debate.
No need to reply, this post is not to antagonise your poor goat but merely an opinion.
TTFN
Flash (Gordon)
Report abuse
I am not against the new school, the situation has been forced by it appears reduced maintenance over time.
I am only against not sticking to the existing footprint and being creative in it’s development plan of approach.
Might cost more initially but land with the potential to feed the population in the future will be very valuable.
Got to look many years down the line, not just the immediate election term when decisions are made.
Report abuse
I left Les Beaucamps 40 years ago!! How I remember having to go across to the Gym and freeze in the winter. It was awful then!! Nothing changed in all that time. So glad that at last this school is going to be modernised. Will always have fond memories.
Report abuse