Wednesday 23 January 2008

Don't you wanna know how we keep starting fires?

It's my Desire! It's my-

Never mind. The real answer is that we don't have a clue. All we know is that on Tuesday Night, during post-school hours revision classes, a rather too familiar noise rang out throughout the mostly abandoned school. Indeed, the fire alarm, after no less than two previous false alarms in as many weeks, has again stunned Temple Moor. There would, undoubtedly, be an outcry, had this have happened during school hours once again. Fortunately for the school, only a handful of classes were running at the time. But for a high school, not least with one with (supposed) "Science College" status, to have alarms that ring out almost weekly without any real cause, I think there is a problem. Please, fix this. The next time the fire alarm goes, I'll stay in my seat. Remember the boy who cried wolf? Temple Moor have taken that to the extreme.

In another note, we have some rather amusing teacher admissions, relating to the shambles that is "BSF". One particular Maths teacher this morning had a conversation with a pupil about how to improve the school, with all ideas being jotted down on a sheet to send to Upper School, who then quite likely tore it up, burnt it, and danced around religiously. It went a little something along the lines of;

Student: "We need more water fountains."
Teacher: "You mean ones you drink from, not a real ornamental fountain?"
Student: "Well they aren't going to put a huge fountain in the middle of the school, are they?"
Teacher: "They probably would, actually..."

Even the teachers are open about their lack of faith in the Building Schools for the Future project, and Templar Truths are the first to bring it to you. Need more evidence? Later in the day, a certain member of the P.E. department, whilst patrolling the grounds, commented on how far the builders have fallen behind with the work, conceding to a group of bemused school children that the work is now 6 weeks behind (At least), and it's costing us along the lines of £10,000 a day for each day the builders fall behind. That's a lot of money. I, personally, didn't believe that was a correct figure; it seems rediculous. But he repeated, and seemed rather sure in himself when he did. I'll confirm at a later date, but that does seem quite alarming, does it not? Then, just to add fuel to the fire, a student informed him that it was rumoured the builders were over 10 weeks behind - to which the teacher in question responded "Maybe..." Talk about faith, huh? Then (this was a rather elongated conversation) he was asked if the builders were all Polish immigrants - to which he couldn't conclusively deny, or even attempt to deny. So there we have it - even the teachers believe that a) The Builders are useless, b) We're losing bucketloads of money on this project, c) We could be up to 10 weeks, maybe more, behind schedule, and d) The builders are, quite possibly, immigrants. I daren't say Illegal at this point, as I truly hope they aren't. But I haven't discounted that possibility either.

The two points that amused the very most though, were that the Year 11's were asked to fill in this questionnaire on how to improve the school, despite the fact that no ideas (if at all they are considered) will be implemented until after the build, at which point the Year 11's, even those staying on to Sixth Form, will have long left the school. And the other being that the teachers struggled to answer any serious questions about the build at all - they don't even seem to be aware of what's going on. So what exactly are we paying these probably Polish builders to do? You'll be hard-pressed to find out, no-one at the school knows. But they're most certainly vocal enough about their concerns with it.

I'd urge our readers to keep faith with the project, but not even Divine Intervention could stop the downward spiral into disaster now. Just pray that they don't puncture any more Chlorine Tanks.

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