The GSD have issued a statement on the recently filed plans to house a temporary facility for St Martin’s School at the old Strength Factory site on Glacis Road.

A statement from the GSD follows below:

The news reported earlier this week that the Government is filing plans to house a temporary facility for St Martin’s School at the old Strength Factory site on Glacis Road (to be clear, this was formerly a car showroom) raises serious concerns. It lays bare a  failure not just in planning, but in foresight and in responsibility by this Government.  

It has been clear soon after completion the new St Martin’s School was not big enough.

Yet despite repeated questions, the Minister for Education has clung to the claim that the  school was “future-proofed,” later pointing to the Wessex Campus as part of the expansion plan, with pupils from St Martin’s School having to share classroom space with  Governor’s Meadow and Bishop Fitzgerald School for several years.  

Now, just a few years after opening, the Government is splitting these same pupils across  multiple sites. Serious questions must be asked about the suitability of the temporary location and the Government’s glaring lack of forward planning. Why wasn’t a permanent  solution, such as an extension, planned from day one, especially when it was visibly clear  the school was too small from the start? The Government’s own commissioned SEN  report noted a rising prevalence in SEN. That report included data from the Department  of Education showing a clear increase in pupils with SEN across government schools,  rising from 20 percent in 2014 to 30 percent in 2023. This is not a surprise. This is a signal, one that appears to have been ignored. 

In Parliament, the Government has previously claimed that this increase reflects “better diagnosis” and “early intervention.” However, a government that truly plans ahead would  have proactively prepared to support this early intervention. So where is it? Where is the  expanded provision for the Early Birds Nursery and for St Martin’s? Where are the extra  classrooms? Where is the evidence that the Government took its own data seriously and  built accordingly?  

Shadow Minister for Supported Needs, Atrish Sanchez, notes: “The reality is that a school  is not just a building, it is so much more than that. This school in particular is a highly  specialist environment where valuable and life-changing work is carried out every single  day by staff that are nothing short of exceptional at what they do. And now, we are  potentially facing a situation where some pupils will remain at the main site, a purpose built facility with a hydrotherapy pool, rebound therapy areas and more , while others are sent to a makeshift facility on Glacis Road.” She adds: “This doesn’t look like a well thought-out plan. It feels more like a patch-up job, leaving some children with the short end  of the deal, waiting while the Government figures out how to bring them back to their  school or provides further updates on their plans for the future.” 

A government that fails to plan for our children, especially those who need support the  most, fails in one of its most basic duties. 

We urge the Government: don’t just boast about the school you built. That kind of self congratulation rings hollow when the reality does not match the rhetoric. What we ask,  and what our children deserve, is simple: plan properly, build properly. Because if a  school cannot even accommodate the children it was built for, it was never future proofed. It was short-sighted and that lack of planning and foresight risks ultimately  failing our future generations.