Russell Scott Primary School: Pupils paddling in sewage, head teacher says

The head teacher of a school in need of urgent repairs after being flooded with sewage and rain water said the mounting problems were a constant "nightmare".

Steve Marsland said he was forced to empty out buckets of water from leaks around Russell Scott Primary School in Denton whenever it rains.

It comes after a BBC Panorama's investigation into the damage and decay of some schools across the country.

The Department for Education (DfE) said pupil and staff safety was "paramount".

"You've got children paddling in sewage, rain pouring through the windows," said Mr Marsland.

"We've got floods and having to put sandbags against the doors when it rains heavily.

"Here we are in 2024, the government has now promised us a new school will be built but that was two years ago."

The school in Greater Manchester, which has more than 460 pupils, underwent a multi-million pound refurbishment in 2015 to its 150-year-old building.

But Carillion, the company contracted to carry out the repairs, left the school with a catalogue of new problems, including faulty fire doors.

Carillion has since gone bankrupt, with debts of more than £7bn, and the school has been left battling issues old and new, including flooding, roofs leaking and heating failures for nearly a decade.

Mr Marsland said the school now needed to be knocked down and rebuilt, costing millions of pounds to the tax payer.

He added those involved with the building work needed to "hang their heads in shame".

"We've had children paddling in sewage two or three times," he said.

"When it first happened, we had little girls, thinking they were doing the right thing, trying to mop it up with paper towels.

"So you can imagine we've had health issues, all number of problems with children being [exposed] to sewage around where they're sat, where they're learning, it's scandalous."

He said this was not just an issue for Russell Scott Primary School but schools across the country had been facing similar issues.

"The Panorama is an expose about the state of British schools and the lack of repairs and the lack of money," he said.

"Our children are the most precious resource we have.

"They're our future and they need to be looked after, not put in buildings that are unsafe."

He added ridiculous amounts of money had been wasted already.

"The way in which these contracts are procured that's where an investigation needs to start," he said.

"These big companies are robbing the tax payer blind and have taken so much money out of the public purse.

"That's why our schools are in the state they are, because money is being spent in the wrong places."

But despite being plagued by issues, Mr Marsland said the school community had rallied together.

"Good teachers can teach in a barn and our teaching staff have had to come to the fore," he said.

"They're so good and our school community has supported the school. They know where the blame lies," he said.

"We're always full, we're a very popular school and we have got really high standards and that's a tribute to the school community as a whole."

When Panorama contacted the DfE, it said the school would have "a detailed programme plan to review" by the end of January 2024 and would be more "deeply engaged" by the department from that point onwards.

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Britain's Crumbling Schools

An investigation into the state of British school buildings where head teachers are struggling to keep their pupils safe and some children are learning in gloves because of extreme cold.

Watch on BBC iPlayer (UK Only)

In a statement, a DfE spokesperson also said the government had compiled the largest and most comprehensive survey of school building conditions in Europe - the first of its kind - to "significantly" improve the condition of the school estate, targeted where it was needed most.

The spokesperson added £15bn of capital funding had been allocated since 2015 for essential maintenance and improvements, including £470m in 2023 "to address school buildings in need of immediate support as quickly as possible".

In addition, the School Rebuilding Programme, which began in 2021, commits the government to rebuilding 500 schools in England, both primary and secondary, over the next 10 years.

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