Room with a view!

This a view just outside my classroom.

The grounds our school is on are fantastic. They look wonderful at this time of year.

They are a vastly underused resource in the school and need to be used more.

I'd like to see a multi purpose outdoor pitch, climbing stuff, shelters, outdoor education resources and more gardening opportunities.

In the past the school had a large wildlife pond, polytunnels, a tractor(and accoutrements ) and several greenhouses.

Due to staff changes and threat of closure, remits changing the above have all gone.

Some of us are trying to get these things back but it's a struggle. Put simply there has been little investment either financially or developmentally. We have been a bit lost and ignored for too long. If it wasn't for the commitment and dedication of the staff the place and our pupils would be lost.

There is change on the horizon. Our council is financially demolished. Could be good for us though. They currently spend in excess of ten million a year on young people with multiple and complex needs. They need to save money and our school, grounds and pupils might benefit.

In my twisted logic I want them to invest in these growing numbers of kids that have these needs, before the council and you and me end up paying for them their entire life!
I want a new purpose built school, I want an outdoor education provision on campus, I want more training to help me help them, I want younger kids at our school in order to intervene earlier, I want the systems of referral to be slicker and quicker, I want all the agencies involved with these kids to actually meet and talk to each other, I want community bobbies to be on campus and I want oil companies who base themselves in Aberdeen to be linked to us and offer support in hands on practical skills from sweeping a yard to engineering, I want there to be a provision for intense support if it goes wrong instead of exclusion ( didn't work in mainstream???).

One of my work colleagues summed it up beautifully.
"We need to be like a mainstream school but much, much better".

You think I'm asking too much?
Maybe someone to cut all the grass like they used to last year would be a start

Thanks for looking and reading.
B