Dear Editor,

I HAVE just attended a meeting of the parents of pupils due to start in Year 7 at SFG in September. I have nothing but praise for the response of the BMAT academy team, Helena Mills, Dee Conlan and staff.

They have clearly moved mountains in response to this emergency situation and produced a plan that should minimise disruption. But they shouldn’t have had to be doing this. It’s an emergency caused by poor project oversight from the Government and it needs explanation.

I was concerned to hear that any delay in communication between staff and parents is the result of the DfE insisting that all communications are first vetted at ministerial level. It’s a shame that Ministers weren’t all over the detail in this way when the school was being built. It does feel like the DfE is panicking and has things to hide.

We remain unsure whether the whole school will need to be demolished, but that outcome is looking increasingly likely; what a waste of public money.

Now that my immediate concerns around my children’s education have been addressed, and the DfE has been confirmed as having had sole responsibility for the procurement and oversight of the construction of this dangerously defective building, I’d like to repeat two of my questions to Mr Halfon, our MP, who has been very quiet recently.

1) Did any of the directors of Caledonia Modular have any links to the Conservative party?

2) Who chose Caledonia Modular, a company not a member of the modular building trade body, to construct these modular buildings?

Yours faithfully
Mark Ingall