Crumbling school 'needs rebuild'

An Oxfordshire school needs to be rebuilt before it falls down, according to its principal.

Catherine Darnton said Gillotts School in Henley had reached the point where every building needed to be replaced.

"We have got a set of buildings that were built in the 1960s and the 1970s," she said.

"We haven't had any new buildings on the school site since 1972 and that stage of building, with lots of flats roofs which have all deteriorated."

A site development report commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council described many of the school buildings as being in "a near state of failure, requiring significant expenditure".

"What the government did was set up a programme called Building Schools For The Future," Ms Darton said.

"That prioritised local authorities on two measures. One of which was areas where education was not very successful, where the performance indicators were not high.

The other was where there was socio-economic need. "Based on that prioritisation, Oxfordshire is well down the list."