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| Clearing field |
Over the past 30 years KISC has led a relatively nomadic existence
being located at 5 different locations. As we said in our last blog, the
longest was Dhobighat, where it had been from January 2008 until it closed
there on February 8 2018.
Then on February 9 we set to work, packing and moving. The
move was supposed take 12 days with reopening on the 21 February. However, due
to some slight delays in the building process we made the decision to push back
the reopening to the 26 February. This meant students had a slightly longer
than anticipated half term break – just over 2 weeks.
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| Ready for students |
This was a strange couple of weeks. Initially intense as we
packed up and the movers started moving things up. Then a lull as rooms weren’t
ready as we anticipated meaning we’d moved more stuff than the site was ready
to receive. Then disappointment as we knew it wouldn’t be ready in time. Then anxiousness
as we wondered whether we would make the new date, then frantic as we completed
moving and getting rooms ready.
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| Finished Main building |
Last Sunday, the 25th, we had all staff on site
completing the final touches. The school hall had been used as a dumping ground
for spare furniture and maintenance materials and PE equipment (the room they
were supposed to be in was being used as a paint store by the builders). A
large group of staff spent the morning clearing this stuff out into other
temporary storage and then cleaning the hall ready for use on Monday. The staff
spread out over the field to check for and clear any last remaining rubbish
from the builders and we went through the routines for the Monday.
I arrived at the school on Monday morning, to find that
there had been some last minute work leaving a mess in the corridors of the
secondary. A group of teachers and our cleaning staff quickly set to work sweeping
the corridors while I led a whole school assembly in the hall to mark the
opening.
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| Primary Lunchtime |
Then we set the students loose on the school. They are
enjoying the new site, especially the space. Dhobighat was a small inner-city
site. Now we have a large field, wide corridors, and the site is spread out
enough that when you are sat in the eating area having lunch, you can’t hear
the primary students playing!
Of course there were and remain, teething issues. Enough water
for the toilets being a headache on Monday and fluctuating electrical supplies.
The contractors doing the network hadn’t quite finished so we’ve had to remember again how to teach with less technology, and so on.
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| Lessons in progress |
The site has been described as looking like a college campus
and we’ve still got a basketball court coming next week and a covered sports
ground in about 6 weeks. Discussions in the staff room this week have included rainwater harvesting, a mountain bike track around the site, having a pond, an outdoor amphitheatre classroom, a kitchen garden and space for forest school. All on the site! It’s amazing!
