11:05am Friday 4th May 2001
TEACHERS and pupils in Greenwich are to benefit from a £5m cash injection as part of the Government's drive to rebuild schools.
The money is more than a third of the £14.6m which has been given to education authorities across London, to build new schools, upgrade buildings and add state-of-the-art facilities.
Greenwich Council will be using the money to fund various projects across the borough including Eglinton Infant and Junior, Deansfield Junior and Mulgrave Primary.
Eglinton School will benefit from £1m which will be used to remodel the infant school building into an early-years centre and improve the junior school building.
The early-years centre will expand to include children from the Woolwich Common Nursery which is set to close.
Work at Deansfield School, costing £700,000 will remodel the class intake structure from 90 to 60 pupils and create early-years provision.
The council was already committed to the rebuilding of Mulgrave School, destroyed by fire in 1999, and some of the money will go towards the £4.5m programme, which includes the replacement of the remaining buildings.
Other schemes include part funding for the enlargement of Montbelle Primary School into a two-form intake, and new or refurbished accommodation at Timbercroft and Woodhill primaries, costing £400,000 each.
Speaking at the NASUWT conference school standards minister Estelle Morris said the building programme will help create a better environment for teachers and pupils in 120 schools, alongside the drive to raise standards and improve discipline.
She said: “Improving school buildings and the classroom environment has been a challenge in the last 30 years, the backlog of repairs needs real investment to put it right.”
Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts said: “We are committed to improving education in the borough and I am pleased Greenwich Schools will benefit from this capital investment.”
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