Sprinkler call for school arson

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News, ATL conference, Bournemouth

Many schools fall victim to suspicious fires

All newly-built and refurbished schools should be fitted with fire sprinklers, says a teachers' union.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) says schools need to have greater protection against arson.

Teachers' and pupils' lives were "being put at risk", said ATL general secretary, Mary Bousted.

The Department for Education said it would be publishing new guidance on sprinklers in schools later this year.

According to insurers, there are an average of 38 fires in schools each week, according to insurers.

"Whilst the Department for Education and Skills consults on whether to make sprinklers mandatory, our members' lives, and those of their pupils, are being put at risk," said Dr Bousted.

The ATL, meeting for its annual conference in Bournemouth, has called for a "legal requirement" for sprinklers to be installed where new schools are being built or being substantially refurbished.

A spokesman for the DfES said the safety of pupils and staff was paramount.

He said: "We are constantly reviewing the regulations to ensure they are the most appropriate and up to date and we continue to look at the issue of sprinklers in schools.

"That is why new guidance will be published later this year covering sprinklers which stresses their importance as a weapon against arson while making clear our presumption that all new schools will have them fitted."

'£1m of damage'

Teachers at the conference described the damage and disruption that could be caused - including loss of classrooms, staffrooms and facilities and destruction of schoolwork.

"Students who set fire to our school caused nearly £1m of damage," said Craig MacCartney, a teacher at Copleston High School, Suffolk.

After 18 months, facilities had still not been completely restored, he said.

School arson has been a longstanding problem. There are on average about 38 school fires each week - and about 17 of these are identified as malicious.

Although this is a substantial improvement since the mid-1990s, when there were 25 school arson attacks on average each week.

Insurers have warned about an increase in the number of major fires - with more than 40 per year causing more than £5m worth of damage.

A small survey accompanying the ATL's proposal, based on 562 responses from teachers, found that a majority of these teachers were in schools without sprinklers.

Among those who had had experience of a school fire, more than half had been caused by arson.